A Cup of Terror
by pgrabia
Summary: A Halloween fic written for a challenge @ sick-Wilson on LJ.  House investigates when Wilson returns from a funeral changed.  H/W slash.  Spoilers up to episode 8x3. Explicit violence, sex, language, gore. Reader discretion advised.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: ****Cup of Terror (1/?)**

**Author:** pgrabia

**Disclaimer:** House M.D., its character's, locations, and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and Fox Television. All Rights Reserved.

**Characters/Pairing:** G. House, J. Wilson, E. Foreman, R. Chase, J. Adams, C. Park, other canon characters, OFC and a handful of OCs; House/Wilson pre-slash / slash.

**Genre:** Horror, supernatural, drama, romance.

**Spoiler Alert: **All seasons including all of season 7 and up to episode 8x3. You've been warned.

**Rating/Warnings: NC-17** for explicit sex, violence, language, descriptions that are very gory, subject matter.

**A/N:** Occurs about a year after episode 8x3. Based on several influences including personal experience, reading I've done in the area of the paranormal and TV shows and movies like _Paranormal State_ on A&E and the _Paranormal Activity_ movie series.

Written for the sick_wilson Halloween challenge using prompts including **blood, candle, knife, scream, spirit.**

Un-beta-ed due to my trying to get at least the first part of this posted by Halloween:^)

Crossposted at my journal at pgrabia(dot)dreamwidth(dot)org and at sick_Wilson(dot)livejournal(dot)com.

**Cup of Terror**

Part One

It was a gradual start, House remembered grimly as he looked down at the sleeping man lying prone on the hospital bed. James Wilson looked relaxed and peaceful for the first time in two weeks. They both had been to hell and back, literally, but it had been his best friend that had suffered the most. House heard the sliding door behind him open; he turned to see Carrie Jennings enter, slide the door closed again and the walk up to the end of bed to stand next him. She was short, curvy, and pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way. Concern was etched into her face as she first studied Wilson and then looked up at House.

"Tell me this is the end of it," House told her quietly, his eyes searching her face for the confirmation he needed.

"I believe so," was her less than comforting answer. "The video team is here. Are you ready to do this?"

House regarded Wilson again before hanging the chart at the end of the bed and nodding.

"Let's get this over with."

**~h/w~**

House sat at his desk, frowning as a member of the video team applied makeup to his face to give him some color and reduce shine on camera.

"Are you sure this foundation is my shade?" he asked the young co-ed sarcastically. Kim Loo smiled at him, used to his snark by now.

"You look beautiful, Dah-ling!" she told him teasingly, finishing up and walking away. "Just quit sweating."

"Turn the goddamned spotlights off and I will," he returned, but there was no edge to his words. These people had become Wilson's saviors, and his, too; as far as he was concerned he owed them his eternal gratitude, and then some.

Two expensive video cameras had been set up, as had special lighting and sound equipment. One of the crew members came up to House and held a light meter up by his face then turned to his buddy behind one of the cameras and nodded.

Through the glass walls and door of his office House could see a small crowd gathering to watch. Among them were the members of his team and Foreman. Each of them had already had their turn at being interviewed individually and together. They looked as stunned and exhausted as House felt.

Carrie rose from her perch on the sofa and took a seat in the chair in front of his desk; she held 3x5-inch note cards with her questions written upon them which she would hold out of the field of the camera. The lighting was measured for her as well and both House and they were measured from each camera to make certain that they had the shots set up correctly as far as focus was concerned. Finally both she and House were given wireless clip-on mikes to support the boom mike hanging above the desk.

"Are we just about ready, Pete?" she asked the young man acting as director. He nodded.

"Alright, we're ready to go," he announced, taking a seat on a stool, next to which was a small monitor which gave him a shot of them with both camera views on a split screen.

The makeup girl had given up her palette for a board, which she held up in front of the camera. "Episode ten: Cup of Terror. House interview Part One, Take one."

"Go," the director told Carrie and House as well as the technical crew.

Carrie gave House a small smile of encouragement. "Thank you, Dr. House, for agreeing to talk with me about what happened. What is your relationship to James Wilson?"

"He's my best friend," House answered, experiencing discomfort at having to talk about his personal life for other people to view later. "We've known each other for over twenty years. I often seek him out for consults concerning my patients."

"When was the first time that you noticed that something wasn't right with James and what exactly did you notice that triggered your curiosity?" she asked him next. Of course, she already knew the answers to her questions, and more, but she was asking on behalf of the future viewers.

House thought back to the beginning, the frown on his face deepening. "Three weeks ago," he answered. "Wilson had been gone for the better part of a week to attend his grandmother's funeral in Chicago. He had invited me along but I was in the middle of a particularly challenging case and couldn't leave. Wilson returned late Sunday night. He was late for work the next day, which anyone at the hospital will tell you was extremely abnormal for him. I noticed him walk past my office without glancing in to see whether or not I was in here and I picked up on the slight limp he had from favoring his right leg. I decided to follow him to his office to find out why he was limping…"

**~h/w~**

"Wilson! Hold up!" House called after him, limping quickly with his cane to catch up to the oncologist, who was making a bee-line for his office. "Trying to sneak in late under the radar, huh? Very good, young Jedi. You'll soon be consumed by the Dark side of the Force."

Wilson unlocked his office door just as House caught up and entered his office, not bothering to try to close the door on House. "And who are you supposed to be, Darth Aggravating?"

"Ha!" House cried, pretending to be offended. "I'm the Emperor, knave! Bow before my evil genius!"

Wilson set his briefcase down on his desk and took off his jacket, hanging it on the hat stand. He donned his white lab coat, an amused smile appearing. "Well, the evil genius part is right. Why are you in such a good mood?"

"Solved my case, making my peons look like morons, and got a two for one hooker deal last night," House quipped, "so what's not to be in a good mood about? Did you have a good time squatting in your grandma's living room?"

"Only you could be so crass about sitting Shiva," Wilson told him, his smile transforming into a scowl. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a file folder. "The funeral was short but beautiful, thank you. It was especially hard on my father, and his health isn't the greatest. I wanted to stay longer but I had to get back to my patients. Look, I don't have time to talk, House. I'm already late for the department head meeting. If you want, we can talk on the way. It wouldn't hurt you to show up to a meeting once a decade."

"You're wrong about that," House told him, following Wilson out of his office again. "Listening to babbling morons argue over scraps of money and MRI time is extremely painful to me. So, what? You trip off the plane, or did a flight attendant kick you in the shin when you grabbed her ass as she passed you in the aisle?"

"The attendant in business class was a guy," Wilson responded, unaffected by House's verbal jab to the ribs.

"So?" House asked, shrugging. "I'm not bigoted—you can fess up, Jimmy."

Wilson rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'm not certain what I did to cause it, but I twisted my knee sometime during my sleep; I woke up with it slightly swollen and sore. It's nothing serious. Sorry to disappoint your pornographic imagination."

They reached the elevator and waited for it to arrive.

"Nightmares?"

Wilson shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. I wake up out of breath, my heart pounding , tachycardic, covered in sweat and yelling, but I can never remember what the dream was about once I'm awake."

House raised an interested eyebrow. "How long has this been happening?"

The elevator arrived and after waiting for a couple of people to step off, Wilson led the way on to the empty car, pressing the button for the second floor.

"Not long, just a couple of days," Wilson replied with a shrug. "It probably has to do with my grandma's death. We were very close when I was a child and, well, I'm going to miss her. I'm certain it'll pass soon enough. Since when are you so interested in my health?"

"I'm hurt," House told him. "I'm always interested in my BFF's health. I'm a caring person."

Wilson burst out laughing, shaking a finger at House. "That's a good one, House. No, there's more going on here and I'm not certain I want to know what it is."

The elevator came to a stop on the second floor and the door opened. Wilson stepped off and turned to see if House was following. House was able to put up his impassive mask to hide the fact that Wilson's cynicism and mockery hurt. He did care about Wilson—he cared about him more than he cared about anyone else in the world. That was yet another crack in their friendship that he'd created with his crashing of his car into Cuddy's house and nearly hitting Wilson with his car. Wilson was giving House another chance, but that didn't mean they were back to being as close as they had been before the incident, House's flight from justice, his return, and his year in prison.

Somehow, House knew he had to earn Wilson's trust back. The problem was, he had no idea what that would take exactly.

"Are you coming?" Wilson asked him, holding the door open by leaning against it.

House suddenly felt very tired, and his legs were beginning to ache worse than it had a few minutes before. "No. You go and have fun for the both of us. I'll be thinking about you while I'm sleeping in my Eames chair—_not_."

"Suit yourself," Wilson replied. "Dinner tonight?"

"Dinner _out_," House insisted. "Now that the goddamned ankle monitor is gone I want to enjoy my freedom. Mickey's Diner? I'm buying."

Wilson stared at him incredulously, shaking his head before chuckling and wagging his finger again. "I almost fell for it." He strode away, allowing the elevator door to close.

**~h/w~**

"Did you, in fact, have dinner together that night?" Carrie asked when House stopped speaking.

He shrugged. It was difficult having to recall these things. Most people thought that House was unable to feel hurt, fear, or love, for that matter. They couldn't have been further from the truth. He felt things very intensely and deeply, and that had caused him a lot of grief growing up the way he had. He'd learned to bury his emotions and build walls to protect him from being hurt by others because it had happened so often.

"We later had agreed to meet at Mickey's at seven thirty," House explained. "Wilson is the type who is anal about arriving at appointments and engagements on time. In fact, he's almost always early for everything. I waited until eight before calling his cell. He didn't answer and I was sent to his voicemail. That in itself was unusual for Wilson. I called his landline at his loft apartment; when I received no answer there either I thought that something might have happened to him so I decided to drive over to his place to check on him. He didn't answer the door so I used my key to get in. I found him lying on the living room floor…"

**~h/w~**

House limped quickly over to where Wilson lay motionlessly on his face on the floor in front of the sofa. He dropped his cane and knelt down next to him, hissing at the pain that shot through his ruined thigh. He laid a hand on Wilson's shoulder, shaking him lightly.

"Wilson? Wilson, wake up! Come on!"

His friend moaned softly, his eyes fluttering open. He tried to roll over but House wouldn't let him, not until he was certain there was no spinal injury.

"Lie still," he instructed firmly as he checked out Wilson's back. "Any pain?"

"No," was the groggy reply. "My back is fine, House. I just…I'm not sure what happened but I know my back is okay."

Reasonably satisfied that Wilson was right, House allowed Wilson to roll over onto his back. It was then that the side of his face that had been pressed against the area rug was now visible—and covered in quickly forming blue and purple bruising. Wilson sat up, and looked at House just as strangely as House was looking at him.

"What the hell happened?" House demanded, finding his cane and using it and the sofa to pull him up to his feet at the same time Wilson did. He turned Wilson's head to get a better look at the bruising. "Who hit you? It looks like you've been punched at least twice."

"What are you talking about?" Wilson asked, frowning, but when he refused to look at House the latter knew that former was being evasive, hiding something from him.

"I'm talking about the fact that you missed dinner, you weren't answering your phones, I walk in here and find you unconscious on the floor, and half your face looks like a grape."

Wilson raised a hand to the injured left side of his face and winced at the pain he felt when he touched it. His eyes widened in surprise and he went to hurry to the bathroom when his leg gave out beneath him. He kept himself from falling by grabbing the back of the sofa.

"Sit down!" House ordered, trying to hide his concern from him.

"It's just my twisted knee—"

"I said sit," House cut him off. Grudgingly Wilson did as he said, and sat down on the sofa, crying out and grabbing his knee when he had to bend it.

"It's worse than it was earlier, so what?" Wilson protested as House pushed the leg of Wilson's trousers up past the knee. "Injured joints tend to swell more in the evening."

He stopped talking when he noticed that House was staring at his leg with shock. Wilson looked down at his leg.

"What the hell…?"

His knee was dislocated, swollen up like a Good Year blimp and the lower leg was covered in bruises and what looked like scabbing claw marks.

Startled blue eyes looked up at him, silently demanding an explanation.

"I don't know," Wilson told House, dazed. "I have no idea how that happened."

"You don't remember any of this happening?" House asked, finding that difficult to believe, unless Wilson was suffering from amnesia from the blows that had knocked him out.

Wilson shook his head, speechless.

**~h/w~**

"I drove him to the hospital," House told his interviewer. "I ran some tests, did a head X-ray, but it came back clear. I wasn't satisfied with that and had an MRI of his head done. That and all blood work came back clear; he had suffered a grade one concussion. His knee was treated and wrapped, he was given crutches to use until his knee had healed, and I drove him home. I wasn't convinced that he was telling me the truth when he said that he had no idea what had happened to him but I couldn't prove anything to the contrary. I insisted that I was going to spend the night in the spare room at his place to observe his condition and make certain that there wasn't a slow bleed in his brain that had been too early to detect in the scans…"

**~h/w~**

"This isn't necessary," Wilson insisted grumpily as he entered the loft on crutches; House followed him in and was certain to lock the door behind them. He helped Wilson take off his jacket and hung it up along with his own. I feel fine—no headache, no dizziness, no nausea. I'll be fine."

"Fine," House repeated sarcastically, "always ends up unconscious on the floor with a dislocated knee, deep claw marks covering its lower leg and bruises covering its face. I'm staying."

Wilson sighed, pausing on his way to his bedroom. "Sam got rid of your bed and turned your old bedroom into a den, remember? Your leg can't handle the sofa and I don't own a cot. Go home, House."

"Nope." House regarded Wilson defiantly. "You have a king-sized bed, big enough for the both of us. I don't have to worry about you molesting me during the night because you're too badly injured. It's perfect."

"Me? Molesting you?" Wilson echoed incredulously. He shook his head and continued hopping on his crutches to his bedroom. "You're not sleeping in my bed, House. Go home."

But House ignored him, following Wilson into the bedroom before the younger man could slam the door in his face. "We've done it before. I trust you to be able to restrain yourself, though I am irresistible to men and women alike."

"Trust me," Wilson told him, heading for the bathroom, "you're not that irresistible."

"I am for you," House taunted. "You're in love with me, Jimmy. Embrace your gayness."

Wilson was about to shut the door on him but stopped himself and glared at House. House watched his Adam's apple to rise and fall as he swallowed hard. "I'm not gay!"

"Okay, bisexual then," House responded with a shrug. He began to unbutton his shirt.

"W-what are you doing?" Wilson asked him, gawking wide-eyed.

"I'm getting ready for bed," House responded, peeling the button-up off and tossing it onto a chair and then proceeding to pull his T-shirt up and over his head. "What does it look like?"

"Not in here, you're not!"

House tossed the T-shirt aside, naked from the waist up. He had to fight a smile when he noticed that his best friend had difficulty keeping his eyes from sneaking looks at his bare chest.

"You said yourself that I can't sleep on the sofa with my leg," House answered, raising an eyebrow, "and I have no intention of leaving and finding out tomorrow morning that you died overnight from a slow bleed in the brain. Besides, whoever did that to you could come back and try to finish you off. I like sleeping on the right side of the bed when I'm not alone." He began to undo his fly.

"Stop!" Wilson protested. He sighed in resignation. "Fine. You can stay—but you're not going to sleep in my bed naked. My pajama bottoms are in—"

"The bottom drawer in the chest," House finished for him, kicking his jeans aside and standing in front of Wilson in only his boxer-briefs, his right hand covering as much of his scar as possible. "I know. Are you going to use the bathroom or not?"

Wilson said nothing to that, shutting the door between them. House allowed himself a sly smile; he grabbed his bottle of Vicodin from his jeans pocket and popped one into his mouth, dry-swallowing it before setting the bottle on the nightstand; he climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

A few minutes later Wilson emerged. "You can use the bathroom now," he said to House, eyeing him warily.

"Don't need to," House replied, tucking his hands beneath his head.

"I need to change," Wilson told him, looking uncomfortable.

"Go ahead."

Wilson closed his eyes briefly. "_Without_ an audience."

"Oh," House said, feigning realization. "And you don't want me to watch. Don't worry Jimmy. I'm a doctor, I've seen it all before but if it makes you feel better I'll roll over and look the other way."

"It would, thank you," Wilson told him tersely. House smirked, rolling over so that his back was to him. What Wilson didn't realize was that House was able to watch him in the dresser mirror. Wilson rested his crutches against the wall next to the headboard and balanced on one leg as he lowered his pants and boxers, then sat on the bed and lifted a buttock cheek so he could slide them past his hip and gingerly remove them from his injured leg. He then used the headboard to pull himself to a standing position and turned to the side to bend over and open the bottom drawer and pull out a pair of pajama pants. House got a pretty good view of Wilson's _endowment_; the man certainly had to_ never_ have been teased in the boys' locker room at school, he thought approvingly. House sighed silently in disappointment once Wilson pulled the bottoms up to cover his magnificent ass.

Wilson also grabbed a t-shirt and pulled that on as well. House sighed again. The man was impossibly bashful and he wondered if Wilson was like this around women. House had only been half-joking earlier about Wilson being bisexual. Over the twenty plus years they'd know each other Wilson had given him plenty of hints and signs that he wasn't as straight as the pin he projected himself as being. House wasn't naïve—he knew what to look for, being bisexual himself. He'd closeted himself once he'd met Wilson, not wanting to scare his friend off in case his first impressions of the man had been wrong, but he knew the difference between humor and genuine flirtation; Wilson was a big flirt with women and House alike. It frustrated him that Wilson refused to accept the fact that he wasn't straight. The man lived inside a well-constructed delusion of his own making, and that delusion had cheated the both of them years of intimacy with each other.

Climbing gingerly into bed, Wilson turned out the light and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling; it was the least painful position to sleep in with his swollen knee. House rolled onto his right side, facing Wilson. Faint light from the streetlamps outside snuck past the curtains over the bedroom window, falling across Wilson's face. House could see him lying there with his eyes open. He wanted to reach out and brush Wilson's bruised cheek with his fingertips but didn't.

Out of the silence Wilson spoke up. "Why are you staring at me?"

House smiled, hoping that he couldn't see that. "Why aren't you trying to sleep? Afraid of having more nightmares?"

Wilson didn't answer right away, but eventually shrugged and replied, "Maybe. Why aren't you trying to sleep?"

"I'm not sleepy," House told him simply, his eyes tracing Wilson's silhouette.

"Hm." Wilson turned his head to look long and hard at him. "House…are you sexually attracted to me?"

House stopped breathing, not expecting that question. He wasn't certain what he should say but his mouth was obviously set on automatic pilot because it murmured, "Do you want me to be?"

Their eyes locked onto each other's. He could hear Wilson swallow thickly. "I…I'm confused."

"I don't think you're confused at all," House told him, calling his bluff. He couldn't believe they were having this conversation at long last. He wanted to choose his words carefully; he didn't want to fuck this up. "I think you know exactly what you want. The question is, will you go after it, or will you continue to run away and hide from it?"

"Just answer my original question," Wilson whispered, not looking away, "with a statement, not another question."

House hesitated a few seconds, though in his perspective it felt like a thousand years. He was constantly mentally berating Wilson from hiding from the truth and now here he was the one who wanted to run away. He hated hypocrisy, even in himself.

House took a deep breath. "My attraction for you goes way beyond, but not excluding, the physical."

Wilson looked back up at the ceiling and nodded before exhaling audibly. "Me, too."

Those two words hung in the air between them for the longest time. It was House who broke the silence next. "It doesn't have to mean anything, Wilson. Nothing has to change."

Wilson looked at him again and House thought he could see in the shadows Wilson's mouth quirk up in a smirk. "But you want it to," he whispered.

House found himself searching Wilson's eyes for dread or fear but all he saw was the dim light sparkling in them. He gave into his urge, and reached out to cup Wilson's cheek. When his friend press ed his cheek into House's hand and nuzzled it, House smiled.

"So do you."

He received a nod as confirmation, and felt Wilson's hand slide onto his waist, resting there lightly. "I'm scared, House. I don't want to mess up and destroy…us."

"Me, neither," House agreed. "But…now that I know for sure how you feel—"

"I know," Wilson told him, cutting him off. His hand slowly slid up House's flank and then forward to his chest until the palm of Wilson's hand rested over House's rapidly beating heart. "I feel the same way. I guess…I guess we can't back up over the line now that we've crossed it?"

House shook his head, his eyes moving to Wilson's perfect lips. His hand moved from his best friend's cheek to slide around him and pull him closer. Wilson didn't resist. Nor did he turn away when House slowly closed the distance between their mouths and kissed him tentatively. It was brief, and when their lips parted, House's eyes searched Wilson's for permission to continue. Wilson's hand moved from House's chest to rest on the base of his skull, pulling him into another kiss, deeper and more passionate than their first.

He couldn't believe how good Wilson tasted…like peppermint tea and dark chocolate melting in his mouth. Wilson's lips were soft yet strong, masterfully commanding House's and drawing him into a world where nothing existed but Wilson's eyes and his lips and their bodies pressing up against each other, their mouths working in perfect synchronicity. House ventured forth with the tip of his tongue tracing the inner line of Wilson's upper lip. A small moan escaped Wilson, lighting fire to House's loins and emboldening him enough to push his tongue into his—best friend's? lover's?—mouth. Wilson welcomed it by greedily sucking on it, making House harden completely. God, but what a fantastic kisser Wilson was…

**~h/w~**

"Dr. House? Doctor?"

House started, waking up from his reverie to see that Carrie, as well as the video team, was watching him curiously. They had stopped recording which made him wonder just how long he had been lost in his own thoughts.

"Yeah? I'm…uh, your question was, again?" he stammered.

Carrie frowned slightly. "Greg, do you need a break?" she asked. "This is heavy stuff…if you need a breather we can—"

"No," he insisted quickly. "I'm fine. Let's keep going. I want to get this pain-in-the-ass interview over with so I can get back to Wilson."

They began recording again. Carrie repeated her last question. "Dr. House, you were saying that you slept on the sofa, and got up regularly to wake James to make certain he didn't lapse into a coma. Did anything more happen during the middle of the night?"

House nodded, not feeling guilty about the slight lie he'd told. What had happened between Wilson and him that night, before they went to sleep, was no damned business of anyone's but their own.

"Around three o'clock in the morning, he began to talk in his sleep. I could hear him thrashing about and when he began to yell I went to him. He looked like he was struggling with someone and his eyes were open; I could tell he wasn't awake and conscious, perhaps having a night terror or dreaming…"

**~h/w~**

House felt Wilson's nightmare before anything else. He held Wilson in his arms the way they had both fallen asleep after making love. It had been one of the most blissful sleeps he'd ever hand; Wilson belonged in his arms and House was determined to keep him there until the day he died, if he had any say in the matter. Thrashing and moaning jarred him from his slumber; Wilson's foot had kicked House alarmingly close to his damaged thigh; though the blow hadn't been direct, the impact on the leg had started it aching more than it had been prior.

He opened his eyes and shut them instinctively when one of Wilson's fists came flying at his face. House dodged in time to avoid being punched in the nose then sat up, ignoring the protesting of his thigh. His best friend was staring blankly with open, lifeless eyes, flailing as if he was in the grips of some kind of assailant and he was fighting to escape. Heavy panting, growling, grunting, and outcries left him, but Wilson's face remained emotionless, blank. It was kind of eerie and sent a chill down House's spine.

Was this a nightmare, or a night terror? House didn't know and for the moment didn't care—he just knew he had to try to soothe Wilson, and that meant trying to wake him.

"Wilson!" House said loudly, grabbing his flailing hands. "Wake up! It's just a dream—wake up!"

"Big Baby," Wilson growled, sounding like some kind of animal. "Big baby, big baby, big baby, big baby, big baby, big baby..."

Wilson's voice was his and yet…wasn't. It was freaking House out. He released Wilson's hands and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him softly at first but with increasing strength when it failed to wake him.

"Wilson, come on, wake up! Wake up!" House shouted. That seemed to do the trick. Wilson stopped chanting and he stopped flailing as if fighting for his life. He still stared into nether space blankly and breathed hard, however, and House quickly realized that Wilson wasn't awake yet, though he seemed to be in a level of consciousness closer to waking.

"Bathroom," Wilson muttered, throwing the rumpled, sweat-soaked blankets off of him and climbing out of bed. House watched him carefully, both curious and concerned. Was he sleepwalking now—two different sleep disorders in one night? Wilson took a step without his crutches; his knee gave out and he crumpled to the floor before House could get out of bed and stop him. He cried out in pain, lying on the floor in the fetal position, his thumb jammed into his mouth.

"Big baby," Wilson whispered around his thumb. "Big baby…big baby…big baby…"

House groaned as he semi-knelt next to Wilson. "Wake up, James. It's me, it's Greg. Wake up."

It took several minutes before Wilson stopped chanting. He blinked a few times and then screwed his face up in fear and confusion, looking like he might start to bawl at any moment. House sighed, recognizing this as sign that Wilson was actually awake now, though definitely disoriented and in pain.

"H-house?" Wilson asked softly, his body beginning to tremble. "Where are you?"

With a sigh, House lowered himself to the floor so that he was seated with his back against the side of the bed for support. He gingerly placed his hand on his lover's face and caressed his cheek.

"I'm right here, Jimmy."

"Why am I—what am I d-doing on the f-floor? Oh my god! My legs—!"

House frowned at that leaning closer. Wilson was slowly sitting up, grabbing at his bare legs which House had difficulty seeing in the dark. He pulled himself up to his feet again with great effort and hop=limped to the lamp on Wilson's bedside table, turning it on.

"Jesus-fucking-Christ, Wilson!" House exclaimed. "What the hell did you do to yourself?"

Wilson's legs were bloodied by gouges in his flesh that had to have been done by a bear because it seemed impossible that a man could do that to himself with his own fingernails. Some of the wounds were deep enough to require stitches and bled fairly heavily.

"I didn't do anything!" Wilson cried, a tear falling down his cheek. "House, what did you _do_ to me?"

"Me?" House said, recoiling slightly. "I didn't do that to you! I'd never—you had to have done that to yourself during your night terrors. I would never hurt you like that!"

Wilson looked to House's hands, which were free of any blood, then lifted his own bloodied hands up to his face while House hurried to the bathroom to grab a basin of water, a washcloth, towels and the first aid kit. He stared at them in horror. House returned faster that a cripple should have been able. He set the basin of water on the nightstand and the other supplies on the bed.

"If I help, can you get up?" House asked him. "I can't stay on the floor to treat you."

Nodding, Wilson used the bed to pull himself up onto the leg that didn't have the damaged knee, using House for balance. House pulled the high back chair in the corner up to the bed and Wilson sat on it. Blood splattered as he hopped to it.

"I don't remember anything that happened," Wilson told him, still tearing; he had to have been in pain, what with his bad knee jarred around as much as it had been and the wounds on his legs. "The last thing I remember is falling asleep cuddled up to you."

House nodded. "You still were when you started to flail around in your sleep." He sat down on the bed facing Wilson and then lifted the latter's legs up in turn onto his lap; he wet the washcloth in the warm water and then began to gently (one might even say _lovingly_) clean up the blood so he could take a better look at the fresh injuries. "You looked like you were fighting someone or something off that was attacking you. At first I thought you were having a nightmare, but your eyes were wide open and glazed over and I couldn't wake you. It's more likely that you were having a night terror and in that altered state of consciousness clawed at your legs. I didn't do it. I _couldn't_ do anything like this to you."

Wilson nodded, and he appeared to be trying to piece together what was going on in his head. He came up with nothing.

"I believe you, House," Wilson told him, looking at him with apologetic brown eyes. "I shouldn't have accused you—"

"Forget it," House told him, waving the issue away. "You were disoriented, confused, and in pain. Speaking of pain, how is yours?"

"My knee feels like it's being torn off. I can barely feel the rest of it," Wilson said through gritted teeth.

"As soon as I'm done with this I'll grab you a couple of the T3s you got at the hospital," House told him, not looking up. "I'd offer you something better but I know you wouldn't accept."

"T-Try me," Wilson replied. House looked up at his friend in surprise; the oncologist was pale, tense and obviously struggling to control his pain. Wilson met his gaze. There was fear in the unspoken message he was sending House.

Working quickly, House finished cleaning the wounds and dressing them before taking the basin and towels away. He returned a couple of minutes later with a glass of cool water for Wilson, who was still seated in the same position as he had been when House left the room.

House grabbed his Vicodin bottle and poured out two tablets, offering them to Wilson with the water. Wilson only took one Vicodin and swallowed it with the water. He handed the glass back to House.

"Thanks."

House nodded, setting the glass down on the nightstand and then popped the other Vicodin into his own mouth, swallowing it. He sat on the bed again.

"We need to go back to the hospital for stitches," House told him quietly, seriously.

"I'll get it taken care of in the morning when we go to work," Wilson insisted, shaking his head. "I'm not going to bleed to death between now and then. How badly did I stain the bedding?"

Rolling his eyes, House shook his head. "Fuck the bedding. Who cares? I'm more interested in finding out what's going on with you. Sleep disorders are often associated with neurological disease."

"I had an MRI, remember? I'm fine."

"An MRI isn't definitive," House argued. "You know that. I want you undergo another MRI and a sleep study. I also want an EEG done."

"I don't have time for that," Wilson informed him. "I have patients to treat and a department to run."

"You do if you take some sick days and I have you admitted for testing." House waited for Wilson to resist that idea and wasn't disappointed.

"House, I'm not going to become one of your puzzles to solve. There's nothing to solve. Night terrors sometimes occur randomly for no reason at all."

House reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair off of Wilson's forehead, trying a different approach. "You kept saying the same thing over and over again, like a mantra or chant."

"What did I say?" Wilson asked, looking wary.

"You kept saying 'big baby' repetitively." House told him. "Do you have any idea why you may have done that?"

The fear that filled Wilson's eyes, caused him to pale, and brought back the slight trembling that was enough to confirm to him that there was likely a psychological component involved.

"What? Wilson, what does that mean?"

"Nothing," he replied and immediately erected a wall around himself so strong that House could nearly see it. "It means nothing. I have no idea. Just some strange thing I must have heard on TV. I think you should go home, now. I—I think that would be a good idea."

"No," House told him, reaching his hand to grab the back of Wilson's neck, pulling him forward until their foreheads touched. "I'm not leaving. Not until I know why that phrase has frightened you. Something happened in Chicago that you haven't told me. What happened and how does 'big baby' come into it?"

"Nothing happened!" Wilson shouted. He appeared to have surprised himself with the strength of his denial. He lowered his voice. "I went to Chicago to sit Shiva with my family. We visited with other family and friends of my grandma's who came to pay their respects. There was the funeral, and afterward I helped my mother pack up my grandmother's possessions because my drunk of an older brother was too hungover to help her. Then I flew back to Princeton. That's it."

"What does 'big baby' mean, Jimmy?" House asked again, still holding Wilson's forehead against his. "You complain I never want to talk about my issues. You're no better. Tell me."

"Why do you care?" Wilson asked quizzically.

"Do you really have to ask that?" House asked him. "I told you that I'm attracted to you in a way that goes beyond sex. I care very deeply for you."

"You just can't say the word, can you?" Wilson asked, smiling bitterly.

House knew what word he was referring to. "If I say it, will you tell me what's going on?"

Wilson broke free of House's grip on his neck, sitting back. "I want you to say it because you mean it, not as a bargaining chip."

"I never say that word if I don't mean it." House was deadly serious. He lied to serve a purpose, usually to save his ass from getting kicked or to get around ridiculous rules that threatened to keep him from doing what was necessary to serve his patients. He absolutely refused to lie about his feelings for anybody. "You want me to say it? I'll say it. But words are cheap; actions are what really tell the truth. Words can lie—actions don't. I love you. Does hearing it suddenly make it truer?"

Silence was what answered him. Wilson met his gaze, and House could see a battle taking place inside of his best friend's mind. House really wanted to hear Wilson say it back now that he had found the courage to tell him how he felt verbally; however, more important was that Wilson show it by being willing to tell House the answer to what he'd asked.

"No," Wilson said finally, "but it's nice to hear." He sighed, rubbed his eyes with his fists before saying, "Okay. I'll tell you. To do so, we need to go to the kitchen."

**~h/w~**

Carrie paused a moment to give House a chance to drink some water.

"What was in the kitchen?" she asked gently.

House looked past her at the crowd that still hung around outside his office. Someone had propped open the door enough to allow them to hear what he was saying. House didn't care; he didn't care if they thought he was insane saying the things he was. He knew the truth, and the only other person whose opinion mattered to House was Wilson's.

Foreman and his team listened empathetically. They had experienced some of what had happened with Wilson; this wasn't a freak show for them. They weren't there to gather some juicy morsel of gossip to spread around the hospital.

He looked back to Carrie, who was waiting patiently. She was also friend instead of foe, though at first he hadn't trusted her at all. It went to show that first impressions weren't always accurate.

"A sippy cup," he replied humorlessly. "A toddler's drinking cup…"

**~h/w~**

"Puff the Magic Dragon?" House said questioningly, a smirk appearing on his face. "Your parents were hard core stoners, weren't they, Wilson? Come on, you can tell me."

Wilson grudgingly smiled at that comment despite trying to appear annoyed by his teasing. He leaned against the kitchen counter, his crutches resting beside him. In his hand was a little green cup with big handles to make it easy for a small child to hang onto it. The plastic cup had a lid with a little raised spout that had holes along the end to allow just a small amount of liquid to come out of container to prevent spills and a child trying to drink too quickly and choking on it. The spout looked well gnawed upon by developing baby teeth and the picture of a dragon and a boat floating on a sea was worn but still distinguishable. On the bottom was written in a woman's hand with indelible ink 'James, January, 1970.'

"My grandmother bought this for me. It was kept at her place so when my older brother and I came to visit she had it available for me to use," Wilson explained. "We found it in Grandma's attic when we were packing up her things. I hadn't seen this since I was knee high. I decided to take it home as a memento."

"How does this have anything to do with your nightmares and chanting 'big baby'?" House asked, taking the cup from Wilson and looking at it more closely.

Wilson exhaled shakily. "I think we should sit down."

They moved to the living room and sat down on the sofa. House still held the cup. There was something about the eyes of the dragon that gave him the chills. He chided himself for allowing his imagination to overrule reason.

"The summer that I was seven, Danny was three, and David was thirteen, my parents went away on a vacation and we stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa at their place on the lake," Wilson began, unconsciously hugging himself as he spoke. "At a nearby marina there was this old shack where an old drunk used to live and rent out paddleboats and canoes to make a living. The story went that he had killed himself in the shack and his ghost haunted the marina but was most active in that boarded up shack.

"David and some other boys in the area that he'd made friends with decided that it would be cool to go to the shack in the middle of the night and hold a séance to make contact with the old man's ghost. I still looked up to David at that point and wanted to do everything he did, but he told me that I was a baby and he didn't want me to bother him and his friends. The night they decided to do this David snuck out after our grandparents were asleep. I was awake, waiting for him to do it and then I followed him. He didn't know that I was following him or else he likely would have sent me home. I wish he had.

"They broke into the shack and I snuck in when they had already started to sit in a circle around a candle. For some reason, David had brought my old toddler cup with him. I realized why when one of the other boys pulled out a knife and said that ghosts and demons were attracted to the blood of the innocent. They would all cut themselves and leave a drop of blood in the cup, then put it in the center of the circle and call on the spirits to partake of it and appear to them. I sneezed at that moment because the shack was dusty and moldy and set off my allergies. I was discovered. The boy with the knife pulled me to the center of the circle and said they found a big baby to bleed."

House had been listening silently, refraining from interrupting with questions but at this news, he frowned deeply and couldn't hold back. "Tell me David didn't let them cut you. Wilson?"

"David told them not to do it, but they didn't listen," Wilson murmured, avoiding House's penetrating gaze. "They told him that they wouldn't be his friends anymore if he tried to stop them. Anyway, it wasn't that bad. They cut my palm and allowed some blood to drip into the cup—no more than about an ounce. It's…it's what happened later that was…difficult."

Wilson's trembling worsened. Whatever it was that had happened had terrified young James to such an extent that he became just as terrified as an adult recalling it. House wasn't good at giving comfort and he never knew the appropriate things to say in such situations, but he'd observed that physical contact seemed to help people under emotional distress. He moved over to sit right next to Wilson and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Wilson looked startled at first, but gradually he relaxed and leaned into House's embrace.

"I don't know if I can tell you any more," Wilson told him softly, swallowing hard.

"Okay," House whispered, pulling him even closer. "If you can't…it's okay, but you don't have to be afraid to tell me. I won't mock you or tell anyone else."

"You'll think I'm crazy," Wilson told him, closing his eyes.

"Too late," House told him, trying a little levity to reassure his lover. "You're my friend; that's the definition of crazy."

Wilson chuckled a little, shaking his head. "I'm not crazy for being your friend…for loving you."

House smiled a little, leaning in to kiss him tenderly. When they parted Wilson sighed out loud. He began to talk fast, not stopping for breath as if trying to get through what he had to say as quickly as he could say it so he could put it behind them.

"A banging started, like someone had a hammer and was moving about the shack banging in various different places around us. I could see every boy there, House, and none of them were doing it and no one had left the circle. The air got really cold. It was a warm summer night but inside that shack the temperature dropped so low in just a matter of seconds that our breaths were condensing in the air. I remember shivering and not knowing if it was because I was cold or because I was afraid. When I started to cry the boy with the knife, the group leader, started to mock me, calling me "Big Baby". He called on the spirits to shut up the Big Baby and began chanting it. David started chanting it too, I think, because he didn't want to look weak in front of the others. It only made me cry harder."

Wilson was shivering again, his voice becoming monotone as he related what had happened. House was concerned about him, fearing that Wilson was going to have some kind of nervous breakdown right there in his arms. He was tempted to stop him and leave the rest of the story untold but his own morbid curiosity kept him from doing so.

"Suddenly there was this blood-curdling scream that filled the shack and was so loud that it stunned me," Wilson continued. "A wind began to blow in the shack, but it wasn't windy outside. It blew out the candle and several of the older boys began to scream. There was still light enough to see by coming in a partially boarded window from the lamps outside. I felt something grab my throat and start to strangle me, something claw-like and invisible. I couldn't breathe or scream. The other boys were watching in horror. One of them pissed himself he was so afraid. House, none of them were doing it to me! It was something that nobody could see. I passed out, thinking that I was dying. I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up David was carrying me along the boardwalk toward our grandparents' place.

"I asked him what had happened, barely able to talk or swallow. It felt like my windpipe had been crushed. He told me that he didn't know. He had been crying though he wasn't just then. He told me not to talk. He kept repeating to me that I was going to be okay, to relax, and never, ever tell anyone about what had happened. He snuck us back into the house and took me to our room and put me in my bed. He was bloodied where he'd been holding me. He covered me with a blanket and petted my hair, whispering that it had to be our secret and we couldn't even talk about it between us. I was so tired and in pain but I eventually fell asleep.

"When I woke up the next morning it was because my grandma was screaming for my grandpa from where she stood next to my bed. She'd pulled back the blankets to wake me up and found me lying in blood-soaked pajamas, the bedding all bloody. My throat was bruised and cut up by claw marks, and I had the same gouges all over my body. I don't remember much after that…just grandpa picking me up like a ragdoll and carrying me to the car. He put me in the backseat with David and Danny sat up front between Grandma and him. I was so tired and confused from the trauma and loss of blood that I slept most of the drive to the hospital and woke up in the ER. Police were there with the doctors and nurses. Everybody was asking me what had happened but I had promised David that I would keep it secret so I said nothing. David told them some story about me sleepwalking and being attacked by a dog…it's all a blur. My parents returned early from vacation and took us home. I couldn't sleep without having nightmares every night, and I had to have the light left on in my room when I went to bed. This went on for months. Eventually I recovered and went back to normal. I thought David had left the cup back at the shack when he got us out of there in a hurry, so I was surprised to see it among Grandma's boxes in storage."

House shook his head in wonder. The account explined some of the faded scars he'd seen on Wilson's body after undressing him earlier. He didn't believe in ghosts or spirits or demons any more than he believed in God and angels and the soul. Still, Wilson's account had given him the creeps and he wasn't certain why. The point was, Wilson believed in all of that—or had as a child when this strange and traumatizing event had occurred—and that's all that mattered. The event had to have been a hoax, a set up by one or more of the boys involved. Regardless, it had been enough to leave traumatic booby-traps on Wilson's psyche that had been triggered by the finding of that damned cup.

"Wilson," House told him, whispering into his hair, "did you ever see anyone about treatment for PTSD?"

His lover pulled away, glaring at House as if he had just insulted him. "Of course not!" Wilson told him. "Why would I? I don't have PTSD. I'm just having a few nightmares. They'll go away eventually. I'm fine, House. Really. Look, you don't have to leave—actually I'd rather you stayed—but I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm tired and we have to work in the morning. Let's just change the bedding and go back to bed and get some sleep, okay? I'm sure I won't have another nightmare or night terror or whatever the hell it was. Let's just go to bed. I want to fall asleep again in your arms."

Uncertain that Wilson was right, House decided that arguing the issue just then would be pointless, and Wilson was right: they needed to get their rest so House would be alert enough to run a gamut of tests on him in the morning, just to be safe.

"Alright," House told him with a nod. "Let's go to bed…"

**~h/w~**

"Look," House said to Carrie and her crew. "I need a break."

He got up from his desk before the director could call 'cut' and limped quickly out of his office, glaring at the gawkers with antagonism but glancing at his team with gratitude. Chase offered him an encouraging smirk, Foreman a slight nod. Adams smiled softly and the corners of Park's mouth twitched upward. Taub smiled a little.

House gave them a barely perceptible nod before heading in the direction of ICU.

When he got there, Wilson's eyes were open and he was staring into middle space. He was still so terribly pale, his affect haunted. The physical wounds would heal, the scars could be dealt with plastic surgery and other techniques but the psychological damage—that, House worried, might take a very, very long-time to overcome and perhaps would never heal completely. One thing was certain, neither of them would ever be the same nor look at the world in the same way, again.

Those troubled brown eyes shifted to acknowledge him. "Hey," Wilson whispered.

House sat down on the edge of his bed and picked up one of Wilson's limp hands, holding it in both of his. "How are you feeling?"

Shrugging, Wilson replied, "Tired…sore. I keep seeing shadows everywhere, hearing growls. I'm losing my mind, aren't I? None of what happened was real, was it? I'm turning into Danny."

House didn't respond right away. Admittedly that had been his first impression at the beginning, but after the things he'd seen and experienced, he didn't believe that anymore. If Wilson was losing his mind, then so was he.

"What you're experiencing sounds sane to me," House assured him. "When you've been to hell and back—"

"—Or had hell come to you," Wilson added bitterly.

"Yeah," House agreed, not knowing what to say. "You're not crazy. You do need therapy of some kind, Jimmy, but what happened was real, not a hallucination. Trust someone who knows."

That brought a weak smile from Wilson, who softly squeezed his hand. "I guess we've been outed?"

"Just to my team, Foreman, the ER staff…yeah. I guess we have been, or will be to the entire hospital by tomorrow. That bother you?"

Shaking his head, Wilson smiled a little more. "No. Surprisingly, I don't give a damn what anybody thinks."

"It's about time," House commented, lifting Wilson's hand to his lips and kissing it.

"Did you get rid of it?" Wilson's eyes held that same fear when the thought occurred to him. House knew exact which 'it' he was referring to.

"Let's just say that we'll have to buy a new oven at the loft," House replied, smirking.

"I don't want to go back to the loft. Ever."

"Okay," House agreed immediately and kissed his lover's hand again. "We won't." He was willing to do anything that his Wilson wanted, needed. House had come to close to losing him to deny him anything anymore.

"Thank you." Wilson looked at him with warmth and appreciation…and love. House leaned toward him and kissed his mouth, tasting a hint of blood on his lips from the scabbing cuts there. He tried to be gentle so he didn't hurt Wilson any more than he already was.

Wilson hummed, smiling. "That was nice. I'm so tired, House. I can't stop sleeping. Can you tell them to cut back on the sedatives?"

"Not until you catch up on your sleep and are stronger," House informed him. "Go back to sleep, Jimmy. Just let yourself have a break—you deserve it."

Nodding, Wilson yawned once and allowed his eyes to flutter closed. House said with him until he was certain that Wilson was asleep. Reluctantly, he returned to his office to finish the story he'd begun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: ****Cup of Terror (3/?)**

**Author:** pgrabia

**Disclaimer:** House M.D., its character's, locations, and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and Fox Television. All Rights Reserved.

**Characters/Pairing:** G. House, J. Wilson, E. Foreman, R. Chase, J. Adams, C. Park, other canon characters, OFC and a handful of OCs; House/Wilson pre-slash / slash.

**Genre:** Horror, supernatural, drama, romance.

**Spoiler Alert: **All seasons including all of season 7 and up to episode 8x3. You've been warned.

**Rating/Warnings: NC-17** for explicit sex, violence, language, descriptions that are very gory, subject matter.

**A/N:** Occurs about a year after episode 8x3. Based on several influences including personal experience, reading I've done in the area of the paranormal and TV shows and movies like _Paranormal State_ on A&E and the _Paranormal Activity_ movie series.

Written for the sick_wilson Halloween challenge using prompts including **blood, candle, knife, scream, spirit.**

Un-beta-ed due to my trying to get at least the first part of this posted by Halloween:^)

Crossposted at my journal at pgrabia(dot)dreamwidth(dot)org and at sick_Wilson(dot)livejournal(dot)com.

**Cup of Terror**

Part Three

"You managed to convince James to be admitted to the hospital for testing?" Carrie asked him, the video cameras rolling once again. Outside the office some of the people who had gathered earlier had left during House's break and Foreman and his team had come into the office, the two women sitting on House's sofa while Foreman, Chase and Taub stood in the front of the office, out of the way. House was secretly glad to have them in the room.

"Not exactly," House answered, cringing slightly as he recalled how he'd managed to get his way…

**~h/w~**

"You drugged me—again?" Wilson demanded, furious. He was seated on the edge of his hospital bed, pulling his IV out of his arm. "How—how could you? After—?"

"I put a _mild_ sedative into your juice," House defended, standing in front of the door in case the oncologist tried to make a break for it. "How was I supposed to know that Chase had, too?"

"Because he was trained to be lecherous by you, perhaps?" Wilson snapped. He rubbed his face, obviously still feeling the last effects of the drug. "You two could have caused me to overdose and die. The thing is I don't understand why. I went to the ER for stitches, I even agreed to the EEG at lunch. Why did you feel it was necessary to sedate me?"

"Because you were so keyed up that you couldn't lie still during the EEG," House replied honestly. "You were trembling from head to toe. Chase must have noticed you, too. I have to teach him to come to me before he does something devious to one of my patients."

"I'm _not_ one of your patients," Wilson informed him indignantly, "and if you want a repeat of last night—the good part, I mean—you'll never dose me again. Admit it; you didn't find anything abnormal about my EEG reading because there isn't anything wrong with me that time won't take care of."

"Let's just hope you don't end up seriously harming yourself before time cures you."

Wilson stared at him. "You think I hurt myself last night?"

"Who else, Wilson?" House responded. "Maybe not the event where you were knocked unconscious, but there were only you and me in that bed. I know _I_ didn't hurt you, so there's only one other explanation."

Wilson's expression went from shocked to disturbed. "Why…how…Greg, how could I have done that to myself? Look at my fingernails. They're short and well-manicured. There's no way I could have caused some of those deeper wounds, is there?"

House walked over to him and sat down on the bed next to him. "People are capable of all kinds of things when they're not—"

"In their right mind?" Wilson finished for him. "You think I'm crazy."

Sighing, House searched for the right words to express what he thought was going on. He was terrible at this, at communicating intimately. This was one of the reasons why he avoided his patients and allowed those more socially attuned to take responsibility for the one-on-one interaction.

"Not crazy," House insisted. "You discounted my thoughts on PTSD but I think it's reasonable to suspect that you may suffer from it. Seeing that cup again reminded you of a traumatizing event in your childhood. Nightmares, flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, and other forms of hyperarousal are symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Add to that the possibility of sleep disorders like night terrors or somnambulism…"

"Fuck," Wilson whispered, looking away from House. He looked embarrassed or perhaps, ashamed, which was ridiculous as far as House was concerned; it wasn't something Wilson was intentionally doing to himself, after all. "House, I'm sor—"

"Shut up," House said angrily. "The last thing we need right now is your misplaced sense of guilt. If I thought you were doing this on purpose I'd lock you up in a padded room myself, and throw away the key. Instead of guilt, do something about it. I'm usually loath to talk therapy, but…but I think that it might help in this case. And get rid of that damned cup. Seeing it every day isn't going to help. A memento isn't worth this."

Wilson hesitated a moment before nodding. "Let me think about it—before you say anything, I promise I'll give you my final decision by tomorrow morning."

"I think I'll make it easy and convenient for you by spending the night again," House told him, smiling seductively. "After all, you may need someone to help you into and out of the shower again with that bad knee."

Blushing, Wilson smirked. "You just might be right. In fact, it could be a while before I'm up to showering on my own again. Weeks…months even."

"If it weren't for these glass walls I'd fuck you into the mattress right here and now," House growled quietly, smoldering with desire. He wanted nothing more than to pull Wilson to him and attack his mouth but the blinds were open and the door didn't lock. They hadn't even talked about where this new aspect to their relationship was leading or how open they wanted to be about it. House would skywrite that they were lovers if he figured Wilson wouldn't smother him in his sleep for it; they would have to talk about the details—unfortunately—when they were at home, alone, without risk of being walked in on and overheard…

**~h/w~**

"When was the next unusual occurrence, Doctor?" Carrie asked him.

"Not for almost a week," House told her. "As I said, I was staying at the loft to keep an eye on Wilson. We still hadn't determined whether or not someone had entered Wilson's apartment and attacked him that first night and between the two of us, I was the least crippled up. It just made sense. Wilson had at least one nightmare each night, but there was no evidence of anything more serious than that taking place and there were no further injuries inflicted upon him until Saturday.

"Wilson and I had had an argument concerning his decision not to seek professional help for what was obviously PTSD. Since my driver's license had been suspended for a year and I had finally had it reinstated, I decided to go for a ride on my bike. I needed to clear my head, calm down and think and so did Wilson.

"I rode around Mercer County for a couple of hours and stopped for about a half-an-hour at a diner for a cup of coffee. In the past I would have stopped at a bar for a beer but my liver's been suffering the hiccups lately and I'm trying to prevent it from completely shutting down on me. I've even been cutting back on my Vicodin intake and grinning and bearing it. I was sober when I got back to the loft around eight that evening..."

**~h/w~**

House found the door unlocked and frowned. Wilson had been a stickler about always keeping the front door locked even when at home since the time when Lucas asserted his ownership of Cuddy for House by pranking them to the tune of mid-five-digit water damage done to the loft and two other apartments in the same building, among other things. Things had been relatively calm for the past three or four days, if one didn't count the nightmares Wilson had every night that seemed to be occurring with increased frequency and intensity. House hoped that this wasn't a sign that their questionable luck had turned south on them.

He pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. Lights were on in the loft apartment and some of Wilson's eighties pop-rock was playing quite loudly on the stereo. House hung his jacket up and placed his helmet on a shelf before walking slowly to the living room. Wilson wasn't anywhere to be seen in there, nor was he in the kitchen, which meant to House that he was probably in the back half of the loft doing something. Everything looked to be in its place and as it should be.

House released the breath he realized he'd been holding and relaxed. House headed to the kitchen to grab a glass of milk when he heard the sound of the shower running in the master bathroom. Wilson's knee had been healing quite well, so he wasn't surprised that Wilson had decided to climb into the shower on his own. House had to smile when it occurred to him that at least during this shower his best friend wouldn't be distracted from actually getting clean by a horny partner who _really_ liked shower sex.

Of course, House reasoned, just because he was late didn't mean that he couldn't join him for this shower, too; make-up sex sounded like just what the doctor ordered. He set the milk back into the fridge—on the shelf, not the door—and began stripping his clothes off even as he made his way to the bathroom.

The door was ajar slightly. House gave it a little push and it opened slowly.

Before him was a scene out of a horror picture.

Lying in the bathtub naked with fresh, deep slashes all over him was Wilson, unconscious. The shower curtain was wide open; water spraying from the showerhead washed crimson off of Wilson's body and down the drain but there was plenty where that came from and it kept replenishing itself to be washed away again.

A glass had been shattered in the sink, and a large shard rested limply in one of Wilson's hands. Blood was all over the floor, splattered on the walls, even on the ceiling. The mirror above the sink had a message written in the steam: Big Baby. The same message was written graffiti-like in blood all over the walls.

"Oh my god!" House cried, trying to fight the shock of his discovery as it moved to completely immobilize him. "Jesus, Wilson! Holy fuck!"

House forced himself forward to the bathtub where he dropped his cane and dropped to his knees. He felt for a carotid pulse and was relieved to find one—but it was weak, thready. He struggled against his brain's desire to shut down on him. He reached for the tap and turned off the water before pulling out his cellphone and calling for an ambulance. As he tersely described to the dispatcher what he'd found and Wilson's current condition to the best that he could tell, he cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder and used his arms and impressive upper body strength to pull his lover out of the tub. He silently assessed which wounds were the worst and most life-threatening and dealt with them first.

The dispatcher wanted him to stay on the line but he had more urgent things to do than listen to her babble in his ear. He allowed his phone to drop to the floor and grabbed some towels from a bar near the tub. The towels were used to soak up the bleeding from the worst of the slashes while House removed his shoes and unlaced them, using the laces as tourniquets on Wilson's limbs. Terror gripped House and it was sheer willpower that kept him functioning. He had to be there for Wilson, not shut down in a state of shock.

House's eye caught something in the bottom of the tub he hadn't noticed before; it was the dragon cup, covered in Wilson's blood. He forced himself to look away from the damned thing and focused on Wilson instead. When he was about to pull Wilson into his arms to cradle him until help arrived House noticed the cuts on Wilson's _back_. They didn't appear to be the result of lying or sliding on shards of glass; rather, there was an organization about them that prompted House to take a better look. He leaned Wilson's limp form forward to reveal all of his back and gasped, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.

Cut in capital letters, clear as day, were the words 'BIG BABY MINE'.

There was no fucking way Wilson would have been able to do _that_ to himself.

House gathered Wilson into his arms, cuddling him and whispering words of affection and encouragement into his unhearing ears while his eyes watched the door fearfully, half-expecting someone to come flying through it wielding a butcher knife ready to finish the both of them off. His mind was spinning, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Who the hell would do something like this to someone as good and caring as his Wilson? He found himself trembling as hard if not harder than Wilson had that first night; he was not one easily frightened, but he was more than frightened at that moment.

"Big Baby _mine_?" House whispered under his breath, hugging Wilson even tighter if that was even possible. "Who the hell are _you_?"

Nearly jumping out of his skin when a loud banging came from the front door, House chided himself for being so foolish.

"_Paramedic!_" a voice could be heard shouting. House sighed in relief. The door was locked and House didn't want to let go of Wilson for so much as a second to let them in; he didn't have to worry though. He heard several loud bangs as they tried to break the door down to get in. After the third attempt with a ramming post the door gave way with the sound of splintering wood, swinging open and crashing against the wall before the single hinge still intact gave way and allowed the door to crash to the floor.

The sound of several pairs of boots pounding into the loft followed by the sound of a wheeled stretcher and more boots was like music to House's ears.

"In the master bathroom!" House shouted to them. He heard them rushing down the corridor before three firefighters and a firefighter/Paramedic appeared in the doorway.

"Are you Dr. House?" the paramedic asked him as he entered first carrying a heavy equipment pack over his shoulder and kneeling down next to Wilson and him

"Yeah," House answered, hating how shaky his voice sounded. "Took you guys long enough. He's shocky, pulse 110 and weak. His breathing is shallow and depressed. He's unconscious and unresponsive, and has lost a lot of blood; his BP is in the toilet…"

**~h/w~**

"You rode along with James to the hospital?"

House nodded, taking another swallow of water from his red mug. "He was too unstable for the ride to PPTH so he was taken to Princeton General which is closer to the loft. He was stabilized in the General's ER and kept for observation over night. Dr. Foreman arranged to have Wilson transferred to PPTH the next day. Aside from the lacerations, a few additional bruises and the blood loss, Wilson was otherwise uninjured. Foreman informed me that Wilson would be kept at the hospital on a seventy-two hour psychiatric hold. I didn't agree with his belief that Wilson was potentially suicidal…"

**~h/w~**

"He's on a psych hold?" House demanded, barging into Foreman's office unannounced and finding the dean of medicine on the phone. House didn't care. Foreman could call whoever it was on the other end of the line back later. His anger and indignation over the ridiculous assumption behind the hold was more important than whatever it was he was discussing on the phone.

Foreman glared at House for the interruption while excusing himself to the other person on the phone, promising to call back. House came to stand in front of Foreman's desk, gripping his cane tightly, tempted to use it to clear Foreman's desk.

"Yes," Foreman said sternly, hanging up the receiver in his hand. "The doctor of record at Princeton General charted his belief that Wilson's wounds were self-inflicted and had contacted their psych department for a consult. The on-call psychiatrist put Wilson on a psych hold until he was able to do a proper assessment when Wilson was strong enough. To get them to agree to transfer Wilson here as soon as they did, I had to agree that he would be held on a psych hold and assessed by a member of our Psychiatric staff."

"You can't honestly believe Wilson did that to _himself_?" House asked him. "He would have had to be double-jointed and made of rubber to carve those words into his own back!"

"I agree with you," Foreman told him, remaining admirably calm in the face of House's hostility. House wasn't expecting this response and it through off his rhythm of attack long enough for Foreman to be able to explain his thinking. "I saw the message on his back, and I have to admit it freaked me out. After hearing what you told the police…look, I know how much Wilson means to you."

"You have no idea," House told him sharply.

"I think I do," Foreman insisted, meeting House's gaze with a serious and knowing look. House realized that he had to have figured it out over the years, knew that Wilson and he were in love with each other, and was discreetly informing him of that.

"I also know," Foreman continued, "that no matter what happened to Wilson, he's going to need some kind of psychiatric help to recover from this. This hold will force Wilson to submit to a psychiatric exam—we both know he's almost as stubborn as you about that sort of thing—so a specialist can assess where he's at and what kind of treatment he's going to need. That doesn't mean that he's insane or that he's a danger to himself. Besides, he'd probably insist on being released as early as possible and he's safer here than he is at home right now; I have a security guard posted outside his room to keep unwanted elements out, not to keep him prisoner. This also saves _you _from being the bad guy forcing him to seeing a therapist against his will. I'm willing to take the fall for that."

"I don't need you to protect me," House told him derisively, turning to leave.

Foreman's voice stopped him briefly at the door. "Yes, you do…and Wilson needs you to protect him right now."

House exchanged looks with Foreman, feeling resentful that he had to admit his former peon was right. His next stop was Wilson's room in ICU. He was awake, staring up at the ceiling in deep thought but looked in House's direction when House slid the door open and walked in. It was difficult for him to see Wilson looking as frail as he did, covered in dressings over the deeper wounds on his neck and arms and superficial injuries scabbing over left open to heal faster. There were more bruises than undamaged tissue over his body. What bothered House the most was the vicious bite mark on Wilson's inner thigh, too close to his groin for comfort. It looked more like the bite of an animal possessing long, sharp fangs than that of a human.

Wilson was attached to an IV pump being fed whole O-negative blood, saline, and broad spectrum antibiotics. He wore nasal cannula on his face and a pulse oximeter clip on his right index finger. His readouts on the main monitor looked much better than even a couple of hours ago, but he still had a way to go before he was back to normal—physically that is. There was no telling how much therapy it was going to take to heal his psychic scars, old and new.

"They have my arms and legs bound to the bed," Wilson told him; the restraints were hidden by the thin cotton blanket covering him. His voice was hoarse and House could only imagine how much screaming and pleading for mercy it took to damage Wilson's vocal cords that way. It sent sympathetic shivers down House's spine and fueled the fire of his rage against whoever it was that did this to him.

"I know," House told him with a nod, sitting down in the chair next to Wilson's bed; he'd spent the majority of the night on that chair watching Wilson sleep. "Foreman had to agree to keep you on the psych hold you were under at the General to get them to agree to transfer you here. I tried to get him to lift it but he wouldn't, not until you've been assessed by a psychiatrist."

Wilson smirked cynically. "He thinks I did this to myself, doesn't he? He thinks I've lost my mind."

House shook his head, wanting to hold Wilson, to feel the warmth of his body and be reassured again that he was alive and well and would be for a long time to come. He had to settle with reaching under the blanket and holding Wilson's hand.

"No, he doesn't," House answered. "He's legally bound to keep you here for the full seventy-two hours unless a shrink clears you as safe to be discharged. There are legitimate reasons why neither he nor I believe you did this to yourself."

"Like what?" Wilson asked, his eyebrows arching curiously.

Sighing, House pulled out his cellphone and located the picture of Wilson's back which he'd photographed after Wilson's body had been washed and was undergoing treatment. Hesitantly, he showed him the photo.

"Oh my God…" Wilson whispered in horror, his jaw then dropping. Immediately, the slight tremors he'd been experiencing became stronger and he swallowed several times. House quickly put his phone away and then sat down on the edge of the bed, grasping Wilson's hand again. It was becoming so easy and natural to touch his best friend after over twenty years of them never touching at all. He could tell that the contact soothed Wilson, even if just a little.

"There's no way you could have done that to yourself. Someone else was there," House told him, his keen eyes studying Wilson carefully, hoping to clean some kind of tell or sign that would help make this make sense. "Who was it, Jimmy? Who did this to you? I promise you, once I know who it was, I'll make certain the bastard never hurts you or anyone else again."

"I told the police that I don't know," Wilson told him, looking at House furtively.

"I know," House acknowledged. He squeezed his lover's hand gently. "I don't believe you. You do know, but you're afraid to reveal who it is. You can trust me. It's me, Jimmy. You know you can trust me with the truth."

Wilson looked away, appearing to be at war with himself over something.

"Tell me," House told him.

Wilson sighed heavily, forcing himself to meet House's gaze. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You'd either think I was lying or mad."

"Tell me," House told him again.

Wilson closed his eyes briefly, swallowing hard. He squeezed House's hand back, tightly.

"It w-wasn't a person," Wilson whispered. "I d-don't know what it was, b-because…b-because it was invisible. Something I c-couldn't see; something with incredible strength and sp-speed, attacked me. It growled—I c-c-could _hear_ it. It was like s-some horrible invisible b-beast that p-picked me up like I was n-nothing b-b-but a ragdoll, tore the clothes off my body like they were made of t-toilet p-paper. It…it wrapped a c-c-claw around my throat and started t-to choke me. It p-picked me up that way and threw m-me into the b-b-b-bathroom. It b-broke the glass in the-the sink and…and the g-glass shards started to fly ar-ar-around the room like they were c-caught up in a t-tornado and they k-kept hitting me, c-cutting me, d-digging chunks out of m-me. Don't you g-get it? It wasn't hu-human! It w-was the s-same thing that hurt me in that shack! It's c-come back for me and it won't s-stop until I'm d-dead!"

Tears were running down Wilson's face, though it wouldn't have been fair to say that he was actually crying. House listened, completely shocked and baffled with what he was hearing. He wanted to believe Wilson but how could he? What he was describing was…was impossible. House didn't believe in the paranormal, the supernatural. He was a scientist, he needed concrete proof and there was no way Wilson could prove that what he was saying was true. House didn't doubt that Wilson believed this had really happened the way he was describing—he didn't doubt his honesty. That could only mean that Wilson had to have been hallucinating, in some kind of traumatic dissociative state or…or his mind was trying to see past the trauma and couldn't so the only way Wilson's mind could keep from splitting into little pieces was to imagine that something invisible had hurt him. It had to be a delusion which meant that…that, well, Wilson was right. House was concerned that his friend was having some kind of psychotic break.

Just the thought of that made House's stomach turn and he felt like he was going to be sick.

He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't come across as sounding like he thought Wilson was bat shit crazy. When he waited a moment too long to say anything, Wilson's face fell.

"See," he murmured bitterly. "I told you…you think I've lost my mind. I knew you wouldn't believe me. I shouldn't have told you or trusted you."

"James," House began desperately looking for the right words, "I—"

"Don't," Wilson cut him off, shaking his head. His distress was being quickly replaced with resentment. He glared at him angrily. "Let go of my hand and get out."

"You have to admit that what you're saying is very difficult to reconcile—"

"Shut up!" Wilson spat. "If you refuse to take my word for it and give me the benefit of the doubt, then leave. I can't stand the sight of you right now. Get out!"

House stared at him in disbelief, unable to believe that Wilson was pushing him away. He opened his mouth to argue, but the look of anger coming from Wilson prevented him from doing so. He nodded and released his hand; picking up his cane and rising from the bed.

"If…if you need me, you know where—"

"Go!"

House sighed silently, his chest aching. Turning away, he slowly limped out of the room…

**~h/w~**

House stopped talking. The memory of the pain he felt over hurting Wilson like he had, was almost too much for him to handle. He didn't want to continue with the interview. Exhaustion threatened to overtake him right there and then; after all, House hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks and the strain was wearing hard on him.

Carrie seemed to sense that House had hit the wall. "I think we should call it a day, Greg." She drew her finger across her throat, signaling the director to cut the recording. He did, calling it a wrap for the day.

Slowly rising from his desk, a sudden bout of lightheadedness hit him and his knees buckled. House managed to grab his desk to keep himself from falling but right away Carrie was there to grab him if necessary and Chase had leapt forward to offer assistance. House waved them off, frowning.

"I'm fine," he told them quickly.

"You're beyond exhausted," Taub spoke up.

"House, Wilson is stable and resting," Adams told him, crossing her arms in front of her. "Go home, eat something and get some sleep."

"No," House told them stubbornly. "I'll get a bite at the cafeteria and take a short nap in my Eames chair."

"You could grab a bed in an on-call room," Park told him. "Housekeeping changed the bedding this morning so it hasn't had a chance to get rank yet."

"Consider that an order," Foreman added.

"Looks like you're outnumbered," Chase told him with a smirk.

House looked from face to face, trying to keep his grumpy mask in place when in truth he appreciated their concern for him. He couldn't let them know that, though; he had a reputation as a hard ass jerk to maintain.

"Get out of here, all of you—that means you, too, Foreman," House grumbled. "I have a cane looking for a warm place to bury itself and a room full of asses to choose from!"

His team varied in their reactions; head-shaking, smirking, frowning—but all filed out of the room.

"We'll be out of your hair right away, too," Carrie told him as the video crew shut everything down. "Okay with you if we leave everything set up for tomorrow?"

"That's fine," House told her with a nod.

"They're right, Greg," Carrie told him as she grabbed her purse from behind House's desk. "James needs you to be there for him and you can't do that if you wear yourself out completely and end up getting sick. Get some real sleep. We've closed the circle for good; he'll be okay without you keeping guard over him for a few hours."

Sighing, House rubbed his face with his hand tiredly and nodded. "Okay. I'll go find a bed somewhere and crash; I'll fall asleep on my motorcycle if I try to head home right now."

With a warm smile, Carrie rubbed his arm encouragingly and then followed the rest of the video crew out of his office. House watched them leave, smiled ever-so-slightly, and then headed for the elevator.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: ****Cup of Terror (4/?)**

**Author:** pgrabia

**Disclaimer:** House M.D., its character's, locations, and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and Fox Television. All Rights Reserved.

**Characters/Pairing:** G. House, J. Wilson, E. Foreman, R. Chase, J. Adams, C. Park, other canon characters, OFC and a handful of OCs; House/Wilson pre-slash / slash.

**Genre:** Horror, supernatural, drama, romance.

**Spoiler Alert: **All seasons including all of season 7 and up to episode 8x3. You've been warned.

**Rating/Warnings: NC-17** for explicit sex, violence, language, descriptions that are very gory, subject matter.

**A/N:** Occurs about a year after episode 8x3. Based on several influences including personal experience, reading I've done in the area of the paranormal and TV shows and movies like _Paranormal State_ on A&E and the _Paranormal Activity_ movie series.

Written for the sick_wilson Halloween challenge using prompts including **blood, candle, knife, scream, spirit.**

Un-beta-ed due to my trying to get at least the first part of this posted by Halloween:^)

**Cup of Terror**

Part Four

House woke when he felt kisses being placed all over his face. At first, half-asleep, he tried to bat the annoyance away like one would a fly buzzing around one's head, but it was the low chuckle that woke him completely. He opened his eyes to find two large, smiling, chocolate brown eyes staring back.

"You just made the cutest face," Wilson whispered. "All scrunched up and wrinkled like a baby about to cry."

"If you're trying to turn me on," House retorted, murmuring, "best not to speak of babies. And there is absolutely nothing about me that's _cute_."

"Cute," Wilson insisted, kissing the tip of House's nose. House had the half-hearted urge to snap his teeth at Wilson but couldn't summon the energy. He was so sleep deprived that it would take more than a handful of hours of slumber to catch up.

"How do you feel?" House asked him shifting slightly to get more comfortable; he lay on his left side; his left arm was wrapped under Wilson with Wilson's head on his shoulder. House's right arm was lying across Wilson's chest and Wilson's right leg was intertwined with his left with House's right leg on top where it was less likely to get kicked.

"I remember a time not long ago when you never asked me that," Wilson told him.

"Things _have_ changed," House replied with a nod.

"Why?"

House thought about that for a moment, wanting to give him an honest, accurate answer while not coming off overly sentimental. As he pondered, Wilson's eyes searched his.

"You know how I feel now," House answered. "I can't lie about not caring anymore."

Wilson smiled softly at that. "You never were very good at it."

House didn't argue; his eyes smiled and he brushed Wilson's cheek with his hand. It didn't surprise him to hear Wilson say that. His best friend had figured out how to read him better than anyone else years ago. If anyone would have been able to see through his pretty convincing façade, it was Wilson.

"I don't know," House countered. "I think there are some pretty clear examples of times where I had you convinced that I was a selfish, manipulative user who didn't give a damn. The selfish and manipulative part was true."

"You're a conundrum," Wilson agreed with a nod.

"You love that about me," House teased, grinning.

"Sometimes," Wilson conceded. "Sometimes I wish I had you all figured out."

"No you don't," House argued, shaking his head. "That would be too boring. Admit it: You like puzzles just about as much as I do. The curiosity, the anticipation, the hunt, the surprise…it keeps things interesting, sexy."

"You are definitely sexy," Wilson told him, then leaned in and kissed him gently but briefly on the mouth.

"Look up the word sexy in the dictionary and your picture is there, Jimmy," House told him. "If you ever tell anyone I said something as sappy as that I'll tie you up and fuck you senseless."

Wilson chuckled softly. "Oh yeah, now _there's_ an effective deterrent if I ever heard one."

House grinned briefly then became serious again. "You haven't answered my question."

Wilson's gaze shifted away from him to some point in middle space. All joy escaped him and in its place fear appeared. He began to tremble almost imperceptibly but House noticed it and pulled Wilson a little closer to him; he was gentle about it so as not to disturb Wilson's injuries and cause him further pain. House was surprised at how protective he felt of Wilson as compared to how he'd felt when he'd been with Stacy and Cuddy. It had always been that way.

House waited silently for Wilson to answer when he was able to.

"I hurt all over," Wilson told him. "I jump every time a nurse enters the room. I see dark shadows moving around the room when there are none. One nurse failed to hang my chart on the end of the bed properly. When I shifted in my sleep it fell to the floor and made a loud clatter. I woke up screaming and I was given an extra dose of sedative. I'm afraid to close my eyes. The only reason I'm not waking from nightmares is because they drug me to the gills to keep me from falling apart. Yesterday my dressings were being changed by a student nurse. She went white and ran out of the room when she got to my chest. Most of these scars are permanent. I don't want to ever see a mirror again. I don't know how you can stand to even look at me, I'm so hideous. I can't relax because I'm afraid that it isn't over, that it will never be over, that it will never let me go—"

He couldn't finish; a tear escaped from Wilson's eye and he swallowed hard but couldn't find his voice again.

"It _is_ over," House told him, pulling him even closer. All he wanted to do was take away Wilson's pain both physical and mental; he hated this, hated what had happened to Wilson—hell, to them both—but there was very little more that he could do but hold him, listen to him, and reassure him that it was over, that the gateway had been closed, that he had nothing to fear anymore. House hoped that someday Wilson would begin to believe him.

"You don't know that," Wilson whispered, shaking his head.

"Carrie does," House reminded him. "She knows what she's talking about. Trust her."

"Since when do you put so much faith in someone whose job involves the study of the paranormal?" Wilson asked him in surprise. "Where's the cynical scientist who takes nothing on faith and requires cold, hard, empirical proof? The one who believes in what his five senses can confirm?"

House tenderly ran his fingers through Wilson's hair. "I saw, I heard, I felt. I tasted your blood when I kissed you, thinking you were going to die, and…and I smelled it; the stink of it is in the carpet, the furniture, the bedding, our clothes. I've had enough evidence to last me a lifetime. Jimmy, it's over, you're safe now." He placed a chaste kiss onto Wilson's forehead.

"I hope so," was all Wilson offered in reply.

**~h/w~**

House had left Wilson after stealing half of his breakfast and had met Carrie and her crew in his office to finish the interview.

"After Wilson kicked me out of his hospital room," House said flatly, ignoring the video camera and sound equipment recoding his every word and movement, "I headed to the loft. I didn't go home because I had to feed Wilson's animal and give the mangy dust mop her insulin shot. I also wanted to do a little investigating on my own. I didn't trust the cops to figure out what was going on, who it was doing this to Wilson."

Carrie nodded, sitting forward in her seat. "Did you find anything?"

Sighing, House answered, "No; then a thought occurred to me…"

**~h/w~**

House set his keys down onto the silver dish on the console table inside the door after letting himself into Wilson's loft. He flicked on a light, set his backpack down and limped from the foyer into the living room. The fumes from luminal sprayed around the loft stung his nostrils, causing him to sneeze and rub at his nose with the back of his hand. He heard a soft mew and the clicking of four sets of claws on the hardwood floor as a fluffy white feline hurried out of the kitchen to greet her human. When she saw that it wasn't Wilson but House, Sarah hissed and arched her back; her long, fluffy hair seemed to stand on end making her look like a giant cotton ball.

"Right back at ya, fleabag," House muttered at the cat. "As far as I'm concerned you can go into diabetic shock, but then Wilson would be pissed at me and he's annoying when he's pissed so…come here."

He closed the distance and reached for Sarah but she wasn't about to have anything to do with him. She skittered back and then bolted to the back of the apartment.

"Goddamned, overgrown rat!" House grumbled. He limped toward the bedrooms. "The things I do for Wilson. If you don't come out here now I'll let you kick the bucket!"

Of course, House knew that he couldn't actually allow the cat die. He didn't like cats, but he wasn't into animal cruelty, either. Plus, Wilson had a soft spot for Sarah and would never forgive House if he failed to look after her while he was unable. House had a soft spot for cat-loving oncologists—well, one cat-loving oncologist, anyway—so Sarah was in luck whether she realized it or not.

He found her in Wilson's bedroom, settling down on the bed. House rolled his eyes; Wilson didn't actually let the allergen collector sleep with him, did he? Well, _that_ was going to change once Wilson was better and he and House shared that bed…House paused, surprised by his own assumption. He shook his head at himself for jumping to conclusions; just because he and Wilson had become lovers didn't mean he wanted House to move back in with him permanently. House had been hurt too many times in the past to allow him to assume anything anymore. Months with Cuddy culminating in a relapse, impulsive criminal act and a year plus in prison followed by months of house arrest electronically leashed by an ankle monitor had taught him not to make that mistake again. One day at a time, trust no one, and assume nothing—that was his daily mantra.

As he approached, Sarah hissed at him again and tried to evade him but House backed her up against the headboard. With nowhere to go, Sarah's only choice was to attack. When House reached to grab her she growled and attacked his hand, sinking her claws and teeth into his flesh.

"Ouch!" House shouted, cursing a blue streak. He didn't let go, however, because if he did she'd probably go for his throat! There was no love lost between the cat and him but she'd never attacked him before. She was absolutely feral; he had no idea what the hell was wrong with her. He carried her out to the kitchen, abandoning his cane in the bedroom; she didn't release her grip with her jaw, back legs trying to thump him and her ears lying back flat against her head. Somehow he managed to get the fridge open and pulled the box with her diabetic supplies out. Sticking her in the sink and holding her down firmly with one hand, he looked at the syringes and bottles of insulin and wondered how the hell he was going to measure her dose and give her the shot with only one hand; sure as hell, she would either attack him full on or run away and hide somewhere he couldn't get to her if he let go of her.

It occurred to him that it was almost time for her meal, so her blood sugars had to be fairly low. If he was able to hold out with the pain of her fangs gnawing away at him a little longer, she should soon lose most of her spunk and strength and become too weak to put up a fight. Sure enough, it wasn't long before her body began to tire and she gave up the fight. He released his hold on her slowly after she withdrew claws and teeth from him. She sat in the sink, looking stunned. He sighed, then got her shot ready and gave her the injection. Immediately he fed her the special diabetic kibble Wilson bought for her from her vet and gave her some cool, fresh water. She sniffed at the food.

"Come on, eat it before that insulin hits full blast and you die," House muttered, frowning. "Come on you fat ball of fur, eat!"

When she finally began to eat, House sighed silently then went in search of Wilson's first aid kit. Wilson used to keep it in the kitchen cabinet but lately he'd been putting it in a cabinet in his bathroom. House paused at the closed bathroom door, flashbacks of Wilson lying bloodied in the bathtub playing with his mind. His first impulse—and it was a strong one—was to forego treating his wounds until he got to his own apartment and to get as far away from that bathroom as he could. Instead he silently chastised himself for being such a wuss; he'd planned on searching for evidence, after all, and the bathroom would be the most logical place to start.

Taking a deep breath, he turned the doorknob and pushed open the door.

The small room looked exactly as it had when House followed the transport stretcher carrying Wilson out of the bathroom the day before, except for the fact that most of the blood had dried to a rust color and the steam on the mirror (with the terrifying message) was gone. Once the ambulance had reached PPTH House had called Chase and asked him to stop by his apartment to grab him a change of clothing; what he had been wearing had been badly stained by Wilson's blood. Even after a hot shower at the hospital House swore he'd been able to feel the drying, caking blood still on his skin even as he gave his statement to the police.

The sickening metallic scent of it reached his nose and despite being no stranger to the smell of blood, House was nauseated by it. This was Wilson's blood; every drop was precious as far as House was concerned and it had no right to be parted from his best friend's body.

Gingerly, House stepped into the room. The entire apartment had already been searched and documented by the police, then released a few hours afterward so House didn't have to worry about flack from the cops for disturbing a crime scene; nevertheless, he was careful in case there were still clues present that the crime scene investigators had missed. He couldn't see anything with a quick sweep of his eyes over the room but that meant nothing.

He decided to take care of his wounds inflicted by man's _worst_ friend first and then search the place once that was out of the way. He went to the cabinet where Wilson kept the first aid supplies and stopped when his eye was drawn to the object in the bathtub. The toddler cup sat on its side in the bloodied tub, streaked with blood as well. Puff stared up at House and his eyes sparkled red, something House hadn't noticed about the cup before. Just seeing it gave House a chill. He grabbed the first aid kit and quickly left the bathroom, shutting the door before heading to the other bathroom.

After taking care of his wounds House went about the loft looking for evidence of someone else being there other than Wilson or himself; that someone could be the one who carved up Wilson. The last room he examined was Wilson's bathroom. He found nothing. Cursing in frustration, House went out to the living room and dropped onto the sofa.

He rubbed his leg against the pain that was increasing due to using it too much. He wanted to take another Vicodin, but it wasn't time for his next dose and even after the ankle monitor had been removed and he was officially a free man, Foreman had kept up with tightly regulating House's prescriptions and random drug testing to make certain that House wasn't abusing it like he had been before his incarceration. House liked his job and he knew that Foreman was less attached to him than Cuddy had been and would be willing to cut him loose if it meant protecting his own job and the hospital.

House also behaved himself (usually) because if there was one thing that he knew Wilson would no longer tolerate, it was him going nuts on the Vicodin again. His relationship with Wilson meant enough to him to suffer a little more pain on the reduced dosage he was on. Hell, if it had been a requirement for Wilson to continue being his friend, House would have gone through detox again…but he wasn't prepared to let his lover know that.

A smile laced House's lips. _Lover_; he really liked the sound of that. He'd never thought it was possible that Wilson would want him the same way House wanted Wilson. To know that Wilson was in love with him was even better. That's why House was bound and determined to figure out who was terrorizing and wounding Wilson and put a stop to it. Wilson was his now, and nobody damaged what was his and got away with it.

About to give up and head home, House had an idea. He went to the small desk in the living room where Wilson kept his phone and after a quick search he found his address book. Thumbing through the pages House found what he was looking for. He picked up the phone and dialed the number. It rang three times before it was answered.

"Hello, Wilson residence, Margarite speaking," a woman's voice greeted pleasantly.

"I would like to speak with David," House told Mrs. David Wilson—or so he assumed.

"May I ask who's calling?"she responded in the same sing-song way. House found it irritating.

"I'm Dr. Gregory House. I'm a friend of James's—"

"Oh, yes, of course!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. "You're James's friend! He's told us all about you—oh, and I believe you've met David before, haven't you? That must have been before he and I were married. Well, it's nice to finally talk to the man James can't stop talking about. We've teased James that he raves more about you than he ever did about his ex-wives. But anyway, so you're the doctor who specializes in diagnosing people whom other doctor's can't diagnose, right?"

House sighed silently. He found it very interesting to hear that Wilson spoke so well of him to family, but that wasn't what this call was about. Since this was Wilson's family, he really didn't want to be rude for no reason, but he wasn't interested in getting acquainted with David's wife. He wanted to talk to David.

"Yup, that's me," House told her, keeping his voice level. "I'd love to chat but I'm at the hospital right now and I have very sick patients needing my attention. Could I speak to David now?"

"Oh, of course!" Margarite nearly squealed. "Forgive me. Everybody teases me that I can't stop talking but really, isn't life all about communicating and making connections with other people—?"

"It's urgent that I talk to David as soon as possible," House told her, forcing himself not to lose his temper. His words were clipped as he spoke. "Could you go get him, now? As in, immediately?"

"Oops, I was doing it again, wasn't I?" Margarite said with a giggle. "Sure, hold on, I'll go get him."

House heard her put the receiver down on a hard surface and her shoes clicking on a hardwood floor before fading out of earshot. He allowed himself to sigh aloud in relief and disgust. If she talked David's ear off like she just had with him, then House had a pretty good idea of what drove David to drink; it would him, that is, if he hadn't sutured her mouth shut beforehand. About thirty seconds later House heard softer-soled shoes against the floor grow louder as their owner approached the phone.

"Hello, this is David," a deep male voice announced.

"This is Greg House."

"Well now, how are you?" David asked him amiably. He sounded sober enough to House. "I never expected to receive a call from you. Are you calling about James? Something hasn't happened to him, has it?"

"Yes," House answered. "James is in hospital; he was attacked in his home. He's stable and will recover but I need to talk to you. I think you might know who it is that tried to murder your brother last night and you're going to tell me everything you know—_now._"

**~h/w~**

"Did he?" Carrie asked.

House nodded, his fingers fiddling with the seam along the armrests of his chair. He was a kinetic person, some part of his body seemingly always in motion unless he was too tired, drugged up or exhausted to summon the energy. It was driving him crazy not being able to play with a pen or his cane. Again he questioned why he was willing to do this when all he wanted was to be with Wilson.

Sighing audibly, House answered, "Eventually, but it took some persuasion. He was as resistant to talking as his brother…"

**~h/w~**

"What exactly do you want to know?" David Wilson asked his brother's best friend. "I have absolutely no idea who would have it in for James. He's the nicest guy I know, certainly a hell of a lot nicer than I am."

"No argument there," House agreed a little too quickly. "This wasn't the first attack James suffered since coming back from your grandmother's funeral. There was another, but he wasn't as badly hurt. When both the cops and I asked him to describe his attacker, he said that he couldn't remember. Later he told me something different but what he said doesn't make any sense."

"Uh, what did he tell you?" David asked, and House sensed that he was hedging, trying to avoid discussing this. House didn't want to tell just anybody that Wilson claimed to have been attacked by an invisible intruder and he knew that though they were brothers, David and James were not close. After the story Wilson had told him, House had a pretty good idea why.

"Tell me about the summer that James, Danny, and you went to spend the summer with your grandparents while your parents went on vacation," House asked instead of answering David's question. "You know-the one where you and some of your idiot friends decided to use James as bait during a séance?"

House could hear David's breathing speed up over the connection and it took a couple of seconds before he received an answer.

"Is that what James told you?"

"Don't even try denying it," House told him coldly. "He told me how you forced him to keep what happened secret for life to save your own skin because we both know that if your grandparents had found out your ass would have been in a sling. Wilson hasn't been the same since he came home from the funeral with his damned 'Puff the Magic Dragon' cup. You remember that cup, don't you David? The one you used to catch Wilson's blood?"

"I didn't cut him!" David protested. "I told them to stop but there were four of them and one of me."

"You could have run and got help," House sneered, gripping the phone in his hand so tightly that he was surprised he wasn't crushing it.

"And then what?" David demanded defensively. "There's no way I could have run with James in my arms and he was too small to run and keep up with me. If I'd left him alone with those guys who knows what they might have done to him. They were lunatics! They told me they wanted to get together and try to get the ghosts in that shack to appear to them. They never said anything about blood offerings and summoning demons!"

"Whoa!" House cried, cutting in. "Did you just say they were using Wilson's blood in some kind of Satanic ritual?"

Another pause preceded David's answer. "Yes. I didn't know that's what they were into when I agreed to sneak out and meet them. I told James that he couldn't come with me and I had no idea that he'd followed me until he sneezed and Larry pulled him out of the shadows. He wasn't even supposed to be there."

House heard what David was saying but he was also working through what David had told him previous. "There's no such thing as Satan, or demons. They're religious superstition."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd been in that shack that night," David insisted, his voice softening as if he was trying to prevent anyone else from overhearing him. "I didn't believe in them either, but Larry and his friends did. They cut James's hand and let a little of his blood to drip into the cup. Then they held the cup up and declared it as an offering to Lucifer, lord of the underworld. They kept chanting it. James had been forced to lie down in the middle of the circle we formed. I was cynical, thinking these guys were pulling my leg. That's when…when the most fucking scary shit began to happen."

This is what House had called to hear about. "What scary shit, David? What happened?"

David exhaled into the phone. "I don't think I want to tell you. I never want to bring up what happened that night again!"

There was a click and the phone went dead. David had hung up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: ****Cup of Terror (5/?)**

**Author:** pgrabia

**Disclaimer:** House M.D., its character's, locations, and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and Fox Television. All Rights Reserved.

**Characters/Pairing:** G. House, J. Wilson, E. Foreman, R. Chase, J. Adams, C. Park, other canon characters, OFC and a handful of OCs; House/Wilson pre-slash / slash.

**Genre:** Horror, supernatural, drama, romance.

**Spoiler Alert: **All seasons including all of season 7 and up to episode 8x3. You've been warned.

**Rating/Warnings: NC-17** for explicit sex, violence, language, descriptions that are very gory, subject matter.

**A/N:** Occurs about a year after episode 8x3. Based on several influences including personal experience, reading I've done in the area of the paranormal and TV shows and movies like _Paranormal State_ on A&E and the _Paranormal Activity_ movie series.

Written for the sick_wilson Halloween challenge using prompts including **blood, candle, knife, scream, spirit.**

Un-beta-ed due to my trying to get at least the first part of this posted by Halloween:^)

**Cup of Terror**

Part Five

Ordinarily House wouldn't agree to sit and listen to fairy tales but the story was so similar to Wilson's that he found himself needing to hear the rest. It took three more tries to call David before he finally answered the phone.

"We weren't finished with our discussion," House said sharply. "Man up for once in your life and finish your story, David!"

"Why do you need to know this?" David demanded angrily. "How will knowing this help James?"

"It will," House insisted, his voice dangerously calm and quiet. "That's all you need to know. Tell me, David because if you don't and Wilson ends up being killed I'll personally make you beg to join him!"

As he breathed the air felt like it was thickening, becoming denser and more difficult to draw into his lungs.

"It was like a tornado began to blow everything around in the shack," David continued after pausing to breathe. "It blew out the candle but I could still see a little because of the lights outside along the pier coming in through where a board was missing over the window. James started to cry. He said my name but I was too scared to even acknowledge it. Then there was this blood-curdling howl that was deafeningly loud and sounded like someone's last scream before dying. That's when…oh, what the hell, you're not going to believe me anyway."

"For fuck's sake, David! Tell me!" House shouted in frustration.

"That's when I saw James begin to rise up toward the ceiling," David obeyed reluctantly. "At first I thought it was one of the guys lifting him up but…but it wasn't. House, he was fucking levitating! There was nobody lifting him—Larry and his gang were huddled together. Larry, the motherfucker, he was getting off on it but the other guys with him looked scared shitless. James was floating in mid-air and I swear it looked like something was strangling him. He was grabbing at his throat—you know, he was clawing at it like there was something around his throat choking him and he was trying to pry whatever it was off. His eyes were kind of bulging like you see in cartoons of characters being strangled.

"Then…_oh my God_…something invisible began tearing his clothes to shreds! I swear it looked as if a bear was shredding them with its claws but there was nothing visible there. It wasn't only the clothes that were being shredded. Huge claw-marks began to appear on his skin. You could tell James was bleeding because it looked black against the white of his skin in the lamplight. By this time I think James had passed out. I thought, 'Oh my God, Jimmy's dead!' He flopped around a little as if he was boneless. Then all of a sudden it just stopped—like flicking off a light switch! The wind, the screeching, the clawing—everything just stopped. James fell to the floor and landed hard. Larry and the other guys ran out of there like they were being chased by whatever it was that had been strangling James. I found the lighter Larry had used to light the candle and lit it to have a better look at him. He was so badly hurt and I didn't know what to do, so I picked him up like a baby and carried him back to our grandparents' house. I snuck us up to our room and I put him to bed and then went to bed myself. I couldn't sleep because I kept straining to hear if James was breathing or not. If I could hear him breathing or whimpering then I knew that he was still alive."

"You were a kid, you had no idea how badly he was hurt," House growled. "He could have bled to death. Why didn't you strap on a pair and wake your grandparents to help James?"

"Because I was a stupid kid, just like you said. I didn't know what the fuck to do. I was completely freaked out by what I saw, and I don't know what I was thinking—if I was even thinking at all! That was the scariest fucking thing I've ever been through," David admitted. "I still get flashbacks and nightmares. Booze used to help get rid of them, but now nothing does. I can't believe James actually took that cup home with him. I still can't look at him without feeling guilty. If you think that James was attacked by one of those guys you're wrong; it's impossible. Within two years of that night Larry and two of the other guys died in a highway pile-up and the fourth guy? He just killed himself last month. The article in the paper said that he'd been suffering from clinical depression which he'd suffered with on and off since he was a kid."

House was the one struck speechless for a moment or two. Had it been mass hysteria? Could both David and James have hallucinated the same thing? It seemed highly unlikely and yet…yet if it wasn't a hallucination, then that would mean that it had to have been real and that—that was impossible, wasn't it?

"David, I need to know," House asked. "Were any of you doing drugs like acid or PCP or any other kind of psychedelics? Was anything slipped to James during this ritual?"

"No," David answered, sighing. His voice was quavering. "No drugs were used. I didn't take anything and nothing was given to James. What I experienced wasn't an LSD trip. I don't blame you for not believing me, but you asked me what happened and I told you. Look, honestly, is James okay?"

"Physically," House answered, and that was all he was willing to commit to saying. "You can go back to your booze now, David."

He hung up with saying goodbye and sat back into the sofa. Talking to David had only raised more questions than it had answered. House had no idea what to believe. He didn't believe in God so he didn't believe in the Devil either. There had to be an explanation for what had happened, but he had no clue what it was. He did know that both James and David believed that something supernatural had taken place, and there was a lot to be said about the influences upon perception and thought that strong beliefs could have. The placebo effect was just a small example of that.

Wilson tied that cup to the events of that night. As long as he had it Wilson would never be able to look past his false beliefs and see reason. House went to Wilson's bathroom again and grabbed the cup from the bathtub. It just occurred to him that it was strange that the police hadn't bagged it and taken it as potential evidence. Obviously they hadn't thought it was relevant. House headed for the door but stopped short as he entered the living room.

Sarah was doing what a lot of cats do—rubbing herself against the legs of a person standing in the same room as her. Only, there was absolutely no one there for her to do that to. She then looked up as if looking up at the person that wasn't there and mewed, then continued with rubbing against and entwining herself with nothing.

House blinked a couple of times, feeling a chill run down his spine. Wilson had himself a hallucinating cat, now, too.

"Fuck this," House murmured to himself, walking straight through whatever it was Sarah thought was there. He gasped. It felt something like he'd walked through a veil of ice-cold mist.

He didn't stop to reason it out. Illogical as it was, panic set his heart rate sky-rocketing. Grabbing his keys he hurried out of the loft, literally slamming the door closed behind him. He didn't bother waiting for the elevator, choosing to hobble down the stairs instead. His heart was pounding hard; it felt like it was slamming at record speed against his ribcage. A feeling of dread rested on him like a wet blanket. It wasn't until he was on his bike heading home when he chastised himself for behaving like a superstitious moron; talk about allowing his imagination to run away on him!

About a mile from the loft House pulled his motorcycle into an alley and up to a dumpster where he tossed the cup away.

"Adios, Puff," he muttered before continuing on home.

**~h/w~**

"What did you think after hearing David's account and how similar it was to James's?" Carrie asked. "After all, it would be easy to assume that Wilson had been hallucinating either from psychedelic drugs given to him or being used by him in the past and currently; not to mention actual mental illness since there is evidence of it in his family, but how likely is it that both brother's hallucinated the same things? David insisted that nobody had been using hallucinogenic drugs or given James any that night decades ago."

"Everybody lies," House responded without thinking.

Carrie raised a curious eyebrow. "You thought that both David and James were lying about what they saw?"

"Either that or, more likely, David was lying about the drugs. Many drugs will leave the user highly susceptible to the power of suggestion. If one of the other boys in that shack gave James and David a psychedelic drug and then told them that they were witnessing a huge wind and a scream and James floating in mid-air then it's possible that both David and James had hallucinations generated by those suggestions and had similar experiences. James was very young so he may not have remembered being given anything to eat or drink prior to his so-called supernatural experience and David could have been slipped something before James arrived and not known about it or was lying about not taking anything."

"But James was covered in severe cuts, scratches, abrasions, contusions and bites that looked more like those of an animal than a human, did he not?" Carrie countered. "How would those be explained by the drug theory?"

"Everything but the bites could be easily explained," House answered then frowned slightly. "But the bite marks…if what James had told me was true, then that's where my theory began to fall apart. As for James's account of his most recent attack it's even more difficult to explain it as a result of drugs. Firstly, they would have been detected in the standard drug and toxin screens that were run when he was admitted. There was no evidence of any kind of drug or poison in the results. That meant something functional rather than physical. As much as I hated the thought of it, I suggested to Foreman that an intensive psychiatric evaluation be run on James…"

**~h/w~**

"Wait a minute," Eric Foreman said, raising a hand and rising slowly from his chair behind his desk. "You're telling me that you think that Wilson hallucinated the attack and did that to himself? You want me to order a psych evaluation on him? House, you were the one in here before this insisting that Wilson wasn't crazy or suicidal and hadn't done that to himself. Care to explain why you changed your mind? Or is this just a little prank of yours to see how far you can send me on a wild goose chase, because really, I have no time for playing games."

"I might have been wrong," House told him quietly, standing at Foreman's desk. "I can't account for certain aspects of his attack."

"What do you mean?"

House sighed. He hated this, hated suggesting that Wilson might be mentally ill. Hallucinations, delusions…it was a little late in life for it to be happening to Wilson but not unheard of; was his best friend showing symptoms of schizophrenia? Could he be turning into another Danny?

"This goes nowhere else," House warned Foreman, his voice quiet and grim.

"Of course not," Foreman assured him.

With a nod, House said, "Wilson told me a different account of what happened than he gave to everyone else. He told me that his attacker was invisible, animal-like, and possessed superhuman strength. Something he couldn't see tried to tear him apart."

Foreman appeared stunned. He blinked a few times, trying to digest this news. "You believe he's been hallucinating, and has been deluding himself into believing that something else has been hurting him when—what?—he's been hurting himself?"

"Or someone else is, and he's hiding it or, more likely, convincing himself that his attacker is invisible to either protect himself or the person perpetrating the attack—or both," House agreed, nodding. He rubbed at his ruined thigh absently. "I don't believe he's responsible for all of his injuries—the carvings on his back would be virtually impossible for him to have done. I believe someone else may be involved. At first I suspected that Wilson had taken or had been given some kind of psychedelic drug but since his drug screen came back negative…what else could it be but psychiatric?"

Foreman sat down again and gestured for House to take a seat. The diagnostician did, grateful to be able to take weight off of his bad leg.

"I spoke with his older brother David last night," House continued. He proceed to give a very sketchy outline of Wilson's story about the shack and David's nearly identical account of the event, plus his theory that both brothers may have been drugged or otherwise suffered some kind of group psychosis around the event. "It's impossible that it was demons or spirits of some kind involved in that event, or now. As any rational person knows, such entities don't exist."

After listening to House silently with fascination, Foreman sat back in his seat. He was deep in thought, a frown creasing his brow. It appeared to House like the Dean of Medicine was debating with himself over something and that he was trying to decide whether to say something or not.

Foreman sighed and then looked House in the eye. "Maybe…look, I know this sounds insane, but a lot of things sound insane and impossible that turn out to be true. What if Wilson wasn't hallucinating and didn't experience a delusion or drug-facilitated suggestion planted into his mind. What if…it's true?"

House looked at Foreman as if he'd said that he was a fairy princess and he was going to turn House into a pumpkin or something else utterly insane. "You can't be serious."

"Why not?" Foreman replied. "Look, just hear me out. You know that my parents were religious, especially my mom. She would drag Marcus and me to church every Sunday. In Sunday school we'd hear all kinds of stories about angels and demons and the devil. As a kid I believed it, hook, line, and sinker. As I grew older I became more cynical until eventually I dismissed those stories as being myths. One thing about myths, though, especially religious myths, is that they are almost always rooted by at least a grain of truth.

"There are a lot of beliefs about our experiences in life and nature that have been either supported by science or shown to be false. But science still hasn't explained everything, perhaps because we don't have the technology yet to be able to observe, measure, and experiment with those things that still deny explanation. The paranormal is one such area. Parapsychology, as the subject used to be called, used to be mocked ruthlessly by the scientific community and many still do but there is a growing acceptance of it lately. There are genuine researchers out there who use scientific principles and technology to help detect, measure, and define things like hauntings and so-called satanic events. Some of the results of their investigations are…fascinating."

"You _actually_ believe that ghosts and spooks and demons exist?" House demanded, both amazed and uncomfortable. This entire conversation was bothering him, irritating him, and he wasn't certain why. He found himself almost believing this insanity, possibly because he wanted so desperately to be wrong about Wilson's condition. "Maybe _you_ need to see the shrink!"

Foreman rolled his eyes. "I'm not saying that I believe. To be honest, I'm not certain what I think about the paranormal or supernatural, but as a scientist I'm willing to accept that there are mysteries that we can't explain now but which we may be able to explain someday in the future as technology progresses. In the Dark Ages they knew nothing about DNA and wouldn't have been able to prove or disprove that such a thing existed if they had been told about it because they lacked the scientific background or previous research, discovery, and technology. Today we've mapped the human genome and are employing out knowledge about DNA to all areas of science like medicine.

"Look, I know about a group of researchers at Princeton who have dedicated themselves to the study of the paranormal. I think that it might not be a bad idea to at least contact them and ask questions instead of immediately ruling out Wilson's story. If after doing so you're still convinced there is no validity to it at all, then fine. Just don't rule out what you can't currently explain."

"And if I do contact those so-called researchers, will you okay the psychiatric examination?" House demanded, not buying Foreman's story but also unwilling to appear closed-minded.

"I'll authorize it right now," Foreman told him with a nod. "I'll let Wilson believe it's my idea."

House nodded, satisfied with that answer. He grabbed his cane and stood up, headed for the door.

"House," Foreman said, stopping him at the door. He looked back at his boss.

"Yeah?"

"Keep an open mind until you can positively rule it out—and we never had this conversation."

"Right," House muttered, opening the office door and exiting through it.

**~h/w~**

"May I come in?"

House poked his head into Wilson's room, ready to duck out should the other man still be angry at him. He needed to be with Wilson, to make certain that he was okay, to reassure himself that he was still alive and recovering. He knew that the psychiatrist hadn't been in to see Wilson yet, so any anger he may have would be from their previous encounter. He was hoping that it had somewhat dissipated by now.

Wilson was awake and, to House's surprise, dressed in borrowed clothes and signing something on the clipboard he held. He looked up at House with soft eyes and nodded. Walking up to his friend House looked over his shoulder at the form. It was an AMA—against medical advice—form.

"You're discharging yourself?" House asked him, frowning. "You're not ready to go home. Get back into bed."

"I _am_ ready to go home," Wilson argued calmly. "There's nothing more that they can do for me here that I can't do for myself at home. I have to get back to work; I have patients depending on me."

"You can't clean and change the dressings on your back," House argued. "You could easily form an infection, become septic."

"I'll come in to the clinic daily before and after work to have those wounds I can't treat myself taken care of," Wilson informed him. "I'll be fine. First sign of inflammation and fever, I'll get myself to the hospital to have it taken care of. Since Chase won't sign my release forms because of fear of retribution from a pig-headed boss I have to discharge myself AMA."

House couldn't argue that he was wrong—about any of it—but if Wilson went home now, he'd never agree to seeing a shrink for evaluation and he could be leaving himself open to further attacks, be it from some other source or himself. Knowing that he had to tread carefully, House tried to think of a way to change his mind.

"You'll be placing yourself into potential danger," House told him. "The police haven't found whoever it was who attacked you yet. You're safer here."

"House, they won't be able to find my attacker because they won't be able to find any evidence because there isn't any to be found. My attacker is invisible, remember? Oh, yes, how could I forget? You think I imagined the whole thing."

Sighing, House responded, "You didn't imagine the entire event," he said. "Someone obviously did hurt you."

"But you don't believe that it was something invisible, something supernatural?"

"No," House admitted quietly, avoiding Wilson's gaze, "I don't. I'm not saying that you're crazy. There are a number of explanations for you hallucinating—"

"Here we go again," Wilson groaned and then turned on House. "I didn't hallucinate. It was real. I didn't take any drugs, I wasn't tricked, hypnotized, or mesmerized in any way, and I'm not delusional. Why won't you believe me?"

"I want to," House said softly. "I really do…but, I can't. Ghosts and demons don't exist, Wilson."

"And you know that for certain? You have absolute proof that they don't exist?" Wilson demanded, growing more agitated by the moment.

"You can't prove a negative. You know that. You can prove that something _does_ exist, but not that it doesn't," House answered. "There is no concrete scientific evidence indicating that the paranormal exists."

"And you know that how?" Wilson demanded, tossing the clipboard onto the bed and putting his hands on his hips. The sudden movement must have pulled on some of the forming scabs and stitches if the cringe of pain on his face was any indication. "Look, I don't feel like arguing anymore. I'm going home, I'm going to try to relax and tomorrow I'm coming back to work. If I'm not safe in my own home then I won't be safe anywhere else, either. If you want to help me and make certain that I'm safe then you can stay with me, make certain I'm not alone…but I'm not certain you could stop another attack if you tried. Still…I'd like the company."

House smiled at that, stepping much closer and removing Wilson's hands so that he could put his hands on Wilson's hips instead, being as gentle as he knew how so he wouldn't aggravate any of the wounds. "You sure you can stand the sight of me for that long?"

Wilson sighed, meeting House's eyes, a tiny smirk on his lips. "Only if you quit telling me that I'm crazy."

"I've never said that you were crazy." House leaned in slowly and touched his lips to Wilson's. Wilson responded immediately, kissing back and deepening it. His hands came to rest on House's chest before slipping down and around his waist.

House had been yearning for this all day and became lost in the kiss. He almost forgot that he was trying to stall Wilson until the shrink arrived. He really didn't want to have to see the psychiatrist slap a psych hold on his lover, but it was too dangerous for Wilson to leave the hospital, with House or without him, until it was ascertained whether or not Wilson was at risk of harming himself. One thing was certain—if Wilson was bound and determined to leave and managed somehow to do just that, there was no way House was going to allow him out of his sight.

House didn't hear the door slide open behind him. He slipped his tongue into Wilson's mouth slowly, sensually…

"Whoa! Uh, whoa…"

Breaking their kiss, both House and Wilson looked toward the door to see Foreman standing there with another doctor. His ID badge read, 'Dr. P. Putnam, Psychiatry'. Foreman appeared to be both surprised and embarrassed, his eyes wide like dinner plates. Putnam raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn't react, a pleasant expression on her face. It had been Foreman who had spoke, or at least tried to speak, anyway.

"Uh-oh, we've been busted," Wilson murmured, tensing slightly.

"Yup," House whispered back; to Foreman: "Ever heard of knocking?"

"Sorry," Foreman muttered, avoiding House's gaze. "Uh, Dr. Wilson, have you met Dr. Putnam before? He works in the department of Psychiatry."

"No, I haven't," Wilson answered, blushing slightly. He cast an accusing glare at House briefly before stepping forward and shaking Putnam's hand. "Nice to meet you, Doctor," he said stiffly but politely.

"Likewise. You look like you're ready to leave."

"He's signing himself out AMA," House said, giving Foreman a knowing look that said, _Do something!_

"I'm afraid you can't do that," Foreman told Wilson plainly. "I placed you on a twenty-four hour psych hold effective a half-an-hour ago. Until you undergo a thorough examination by Dr. Putnam and he clears you to be discharged, you're staying here, Wilson."

Wilson looked at House angrily. "You arranged this, didn't you?"

"Don't blame House," Foreman stepped in on cue. "This was my decision. Wilson, you've been through a very traumatic experience. I think it's only wise that you undergo an evaluation to make certain that you're going to be okay. Dr. Putnam can recommend whatever therapy he figures you might need to deal with the stress of this situation before it becomes full-blown PTSD."

"I appreciate your concern," Wilson said, but the tone of his voice sounded anything but thankful. "However, I'm fine. I don't need therapy. I just need to go home to my own bed."

"After the evaluation," Foreman told him firmly. "House, go do your clinic hours."

"But Dad! I always miss the fun stuff!"

**~h/w~**

"What was the result of the psych evaluation?" Carrie asked him, glancing down at one of the note cards in her lap.

"Wilson played the shrink like a pro," House replied, smirking. "Told him he didn't know the identity of his assailant and his memories were too fuzzy for him to be certain what he looked like. Wilson does sane very well. Dr. Putnam decided that Wilson was not a threat to himself or anyone else but did refer him to a Victims of Violence support group that meets here at PPTH."

An amused smile appeared on the interviewer's face. "You don't believe James was sane?"

"I didn't know what to think," House confessed, his smirk disappearing.

Carrie nodded. "So Wilson went home? Did you go with him?"

"I wasn't about to let him out of my sight for a second," House confirmed.

"Was this when the event that changed your mind about Wilson's story occurred?"

A sigh escaped House. He felt so tired and sick. Never would he be able to recall what had happened after Wilson had gone home with questioning his own sanity; but House knew what he'd experienced and no one could convince him otherwise.

"I was about to have my world turned upside down," he told her grimly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: ****Cup of Terror (6/7)**

**Author:** pgrabia

**Disclaimer:** House M.D., its character's, locations, and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and Fox Television. All Rights Reserved.

**Characters/Pairing:** G. House, J. Wilson, E. Foreman, R. Chase, J. Adams, C. Park, other canon characters, OFC and a handful of OCs; House/Wilson pre-slash / slash.

**Genre:** Horror, supernatural, drama, romance.

**Spoiler Alert: **All seasons including all of season 7 and up to episode 8x3. You've been warned.

**Rating/Warnings: NC-17** for explicit sex, violence, language, descriptions that are very gory, subject matter.

**A/N:** Occurs about a year after episode 8x3. Based on several influences including personal experience, reading I've done in the area of the paranormal and TV shows and movies like _Paranormal State_ on A&E and the _Paranormal Activity_ movie series.

Written for the sick_wilson Halloween challenge using prompts including **blood, candle, knife, scream, spirit.**

A reminder that this is unbetaed. Forgive me:^/

**Cup of Terror**

Part Six (Ch. 5)

House had wanted Wilson to stay at his place until things settled down (whatever that meant) but his best friend had insisted that he wanted to sleep in his own bed and make certain that Sarah was okay. House had assured him that he'd taken good care of his mangy dust mop but Wilson, ever the worrier, had had to see this for himself.

Before Wilson and he arrived at the loft House had hired someone to clean up the place including the master bathroom. He'd had to pay extra for that but knew it would be worth it when Wilson didn't have to see that mess and relive the hell he'd gone through. Just being back in the loft would be hard enough on him—on _both_ of them. Appreciative of the gesture, Wilson had kissed House tenderly and then offered to make him something to eat. House wasn't all that hungry and he didn't want Wilson to overdo it physically, but Wilson was insistent. House followed him into the kitchen to make certain that whatever his lover made, it was simple.

"What the fuck?" House said, sucking in a breath suddenly.

The Puff cup sat on the kitchen island. Both House and Wilson stared at it in dismay.

"I-I thought you said that you g-got rid of it," Wilson commented, beginning to tremble ever so slightly. House wouldn't have noticed except Wilson had backed into him, pressing his body close to him as if seeking comfort and protection.

"I did," House told him, gently taking Wilson's shoulders and moving him to the side so he could approach the island to get a better look at the cup. "Stay here."

Cursing under his breath and shaking his head in disbelief, House studied it carefully without touching it. There was still blood on it; it definitely was the same cup, which was impossible, yet there it was. House knew he wasn't crazy, he knew he'd thrown the cup in a dumpster quite some distance away. The only explanation was that whoever had hurt Wilson had been watching the loft, followed House, saw him throw the cup into the dumpster, retrieved it, broke into the loft again and placed it on the island where they were sure to see it shortly after arriving home. It seemed far-fetched, but what other explanation could there be? The bastard was taunting them, whoever it was.

"Then how—?"

"Someone is trying to fuck with our minds," House responded and then told Wilson his theory.

"It wasn't a _person_ that brought it back here," Wilson told him grimly, still as certain as ever about it. "There hasn't been any evidence of anyone breaking into the loft, House. It's not a practical joke being pulled on us by someone from the hospital. No human being attacked me. There is some kind of supernatural force attached to that cup and me and it won't stop until I'm dead!"

House knew there was no point in arguing with him; in truth, he was a little freaked out himself. It wasn't that he believed in spooks but the idea of someone deranged enough to go to these lengths to terrify Wilson lurking about Princeton put House ill-at-ease. He went back to Wilson and wrapped his arms around him protectively, comfortingly. Wilson seemed to melt into his arms, holding him tightly back.

"I'm going to call the police to report this," House said into Wilson's hair, "and insist they put cops outside this place twenty-four-seven until the asshole responsible has been caught. No arguments."

Wilson exhaled deeply, resting his head on House's shoulder, his face buried in the curve of the older man's neck. He nodded.

"Okay," Wilson whispered.

House released Wilson from his embrace but held onto his hand throughout his call to the police. It took a while but eventually House convinced one of the detectives on the case to take the request for police protection to his captain for approval. A uniformed officer was sent to the loft to pick up the cup for analysis; House was glad to see the damned thing go and Wilson appeared to physically relax after it had.

House didn't like how tired Wilson appeared to be. All thoughts toward food were gone and all he wanted to do was get Wilson to bed to get some sleep.

"Come on," House told him, gently directing him toward the bedroom. "You look like you're going to fall asleep on your feet. Let's get you to bed and I'll fix _you_ something to eat. Do you still make and keep soup frozen in your freezer?"

"Mm, yeah," Wilson answered, taking too long to think about that. "I think there's some Borscht I made up there frozen flat in a Ziploc bag. It should be labeled. All you have to do is run the bag under a hot tap for a few seconds then empty the soup into a bowl and reheat in the microwave. I'm certain there's enough up there for the both of us."

House made a face, feeling put off by the word Borscht. He hated beets; they were too red and tasted vile. "Thanks, but I like my food grown above ground. I'll warm some for you, though."

"I made it with yellow beets this time," Wilson insisted, shaking his head at House's picky appetite. "The taste is milder. If you add a dollop of sour cream—"

"Thanks," House said, his face still screwed up, "but no thanks. Boiled roots and spoiled milk are not my idea of food." They were in the bedroom and House was undressing Wilson now, his eyes slowly and thoroughly following the lines of the younger man's body as it was being exposed. For his part, Wilson's eyelids were at half-mast and lowering quickly. House would never admit it even under threat of death but he found sleepy, dopy Wilson absolutely adorable.

He sat Wilson down onto the bed; he was clad only in white boxers and black trouser socks. His brown hair stuck up like a rooster's tail at the crown of his head. House removed the rest of Wilson's clothing and then located a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt. Wilson cooperated as House dressed him into the bedclothes, but he didn't really help. For a moment, House thought that he had fallen asleep sitting up but was proven to be wrong when Wilson spoke, keeping his eyes closed.

"I'm not hungry. Just come to bed with me."

House didn't need any convincing. He pushed Wilson over onto a pillow and then lifted his legs onto the mattress and covered him with the sheet and comforter. He quickly undressed down to his T-shirt and boxers and joined Wilson in the bed, leaning his cane against the wall beside the bed. He scooted over so that he was next to Wilson and wrapped his arm around him, holding him closely.

"How's that?"

Wilson smiled mildly, snuggling closer. "Better."

"Do you need any more pain meds?" House asked him, but he received only a soft snore in reply. Snorting softly, amused, House forced himself to relax and enjoy just being with Wilson like that, even if his best friend was sound asleep and oblivious of him. He wasn't particularly sleepy, so he spent that quiet time to ponder over the recent events again, adding to them the return of that cursed cup today. Someone was not only trying to terrorize and maim Wilson (with the ultimate intention of killing him?), but to make it clear that he was in control, pulling the strings, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. House enjoyed challenges, and returning that Puff cup from where House had left it was a definite gauntlet thrown down before him. One thing House did know was that it hadn't been Wilson who had retrieved it from the dumpster.

So who wanted to harm Wilson? Who would have the motive, means, and opportunity?

House needed to see the possibilities in front of him; he was a visual person, hence his use of a white board during differentials. It wasn't simply a teaching tool for his fellows; it helped him conceptualize what it was he was trying to figure out. Carefully, House eased himself out of bed so that he didn't wake Wilson, and began to look around the loft for something to write on and something to write with. In his search he found a black grease pencil in a kitchen drawer that Wilson used to mark his plastic storage containers. He took it to the bedroom and went to the dresser mirror. He drew a line down the middle of the reflective surface and on one side began to list factors in what was happening to Wilson like he would the signs and symptoms a patient was exhibiting.

He listed: _Puff cup, physical attacks, no signs B&E, someone returns cup, 'ghost' story—both W and D, punks dead and/or gone, 'invisible' attacker, fear and stress, hallucinations._

On the other side of the line he wrote: self-harm, _vindictive enemy, angry patient/family/employee/ex, pos. drug involvement or environmental toxins/contamination, poisoning, brain injury/disease, psychiatric, someone with key/access to loft, someone with knowledge of 'ghost' story._

In the 'margins' of the mirror he scribbled:_ Witnesses? More intense tox screen? Brain MRI? Sweep loft for toxins/contaminants/disease agents?_

Stepping back from the mirror, House set the grease pencil on the dresser then pondered over his list.

He jumped a little when Wilson said softly from behind him, "You forgot 'family history of schizophrenia."

House sighed and turned around. Wilson was sitting up in bed, looking exhausted. He went to sit on the edge of the bed next to his lover.

"I didn't forget; I ran out of space," House mumbled, trying to ignore the guilty feeling nagging him. "How long have you been awake?"

Wilson shrugged. "A minute or two." He took a hold of House's hand and held it. "Do you really think I'm hallucinating, that I've lost my mind?"

"I don't know," House equivocated. "I just know that there are no such things as ghosts or demons. If you are hallucinating and harming yourself unaware, it could be due to some form of poisoning or infection caused by environmental factors or some form of brain injury or illness. It's unlikely it would be schizophrenia considering your age and lack of other symptoms typical to the disease. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a possibility, considering the details that both you and David gave me of that event in the shack when you were a child. If you're not self-harming and you can't remember seeing anyone hurting you, it could be due to drugs, hypnosis, or a combination of both. It could also be attributable to PTSD caused by the _recent _attacks—dissociation thanks to your psyche attempting to protect itself from the horror of the attacks. I don't give a damn about anything but protecting you from harm and making the attacks, whatever their cause, end."

"What if you can't do either?" Wilson asked him in a small voice, biting his lip. "House, I don't want anything to happen to you because of me."

"I don't intend on being a victim," House assured him. "You don't need to worry about me." He lifted Wilson's hand to his mouth and gently kissed it. "Now try to go back to sleep. I'm going to call Chase and have him and Taub come over to sweep the loft and take samples to check for toxins and infectious agents, including mold and mildew. Some fungal infections of the brain can be difficult to detect and can cause hallucinations and memory problems. Samples of your food and water will be tested for drugs or other toxins as well. I want to rule out any foreign agents causing sensory and cognitive problems."

"You won't be leaving the loft, will you?" Wilson asked him apprehensively.

"No," House assured him. "I'm not leaving you alone in this place for a minute. I promise."

"Okay," Wilson agreed with a sigh. "Don't take too long. I like having you curled up in bed with me."

House couldn't resist the urge to smile. He leaned toward Wilson and kissed him, lingering.

"Me, too," he murmured, placing small, tender kisses all over Wilson's face but avoiding his mouth. Wilson tried to catch House's mouth with his own and frowned when House succeeded at evading him. He chuckled deeply at his younger lover's frustration.

"Jerk," Wilson said petulantly. He lay down, pulling the comforter up to his chin.

"Maybe later, once you're feeling better," House retorted, getting up from the bed. "Rest, now." He took one more look at his chart on the mirror before leaving the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Wilson was as safe as possible for now.

_**~h/w~**_

"So Chase and Taub came by and took samples back to the hospital," House told his interviewer, spinning his oversized tennis ball between his two index fingers, focusing his eyes on that instead of Carrie's face or the camera recording every word he said. "Wilson slept the entire time. He woke up about an hour after they left, screaming for me."

"Screaming?" Carrie asked, raising both eyebrows. She waited for House to elaborate and after a pause of about two seconds, he sighed and did so.

"I just about fell flat on my face in my attempt to get to the bedroom faster than my bum leg would let me. Wilson was sitting up in bed, screaming my name; he wasn't completely awake nor asleep, but rather in some hell somewhere in between…"

_**~h/w~**_

"House! House, _help_ me! Oh my God! _Aaaaah_!" Wilson screamed, his glazed over eyes staring blankly into middle space while his arms thrashed as if he was defending himself against a vicious animal. House practically fell onto the bed beside him, trying to ignore the screeching of his leg as it protested his sudden movements. He grabbed Wilson by the shoulders, tempted to shake him but resisting the urge, fearing it would only add to the horror his lover was experiencing.

"Wilson," House said loudly, trying to capture Wilson's attention and failing, "It's me. It's House! Everything is alright—wake up!" But Wilson made no indication that he heard him. In fact, House could tell by the absence of any kind of consciousness despite Wilson's eyes being open that he wasn't awake or asleep. This was no ordinary dream; this was a night terror, and night terrors in men Wilson's age were a bad sign. House simply had to wait it out, and do his best to make certain Wilson didn't hurt himself. He would have to run the course of this state of altered consciousness before House could do anything more for him.

"Biting!" Wilson continued to scream, flailing his arms more. "Oh God, it hurts! It hurts! House, please, please, help me! Please…!"

House wished he could; it was tearing him up to see his best friend this terrified and desperate and not able to do anything about it. In frustration, House pulled Wilson into a bear hug in spite of Wilson's attempts to fight him, to escape his hold.

Then House saw it happen, right in front of his eyes. At that moment he questioned his own sanity. Something he couldn't see tore open the back of Wilson's T-shirt, or rather, shredded it like a paw with razor sharp claws would, had there been such an animal around. But there wasn't; this couldn't be happening, but it _was_! The white T-shirt suddenly stained a deep grey in the dim room, but House knew that in the light, that grey would be red—blood red. Suddenly another set of clawlike tears shredded Wilson's shirt and the flesh underneath in another spot, shedding blood, then another on his shoulder, the same. Wilson screamed in agony and House wasn't certain but he thought it was possibly that he was screaming with him.

Without thinking about how ludicrous it all was, House shouted at the darkness, "_Stop it! Goddamn it you motherfucking…whatever the hell you are, stop it_!"

The nothingness that was slicing up his lover anew slammed House in the side of the head with the force of a sledgehammer, sending him flying backward away from Wilson. He pin-wheeled his arms, trying to grab something—anything—before he slammed against the wall four feet away, the back of his head cracking against its solidity; the pain from the initial attack disappeared as he succumbed to unconsciousness.

House came to an indeterminate amount of time later to feel mind-numbing pain in his head, back, and leg. He groaned and opened his eyes, blinded by the full illumination of the ceiling lamp and too dizzy and disoriented to protect himself from whatever it was that had attacked him. Fortunately, it appeared he didn't have to. He was able to tell that he leaned half-sitting, half-lying against the wall on the bedroom floor. Wilson knelt in front of him, his face red from sobbing, his T-shirt from blood. He looked at House with worry, one hand on House's shoulder and the other on his scruffy cheek.

"House, easy," Wilson told him with a hoarse voice. "You hit your head hard and it's bleeding. So is your face—you have four deep, parallel lacerations on your left cheek. I called for an ambulance. Just lie still until it comes; you could be suffering a serious head injury."

Unconcerned about himself, House reached out to grab Wilson by the shoulders, his hands moving to the seemingly limitless lacerations bleeding out all over the younger man's arms and torso.

'Wilson-!" he croaked, trying to sit up in spite of the dizziness and sudden increase in the pain in his head. He groaned again involuntarily and fell back to his original position; the world spun around him. House felt nauseated enough to vomit but he managed to hold it back.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Wilson told him grimly, but House could tell from the lines around his eyes and mouth that the oncologist was in a considerable amount of pain. "Don't try to get up! Who knows what else might be damaged inside that head of yours. I'll be okay; the cuts are more superficial this time. When you were hit by it, it stopped attacking me and—and left." Wilson looked at each of House's eyes individually. "Can you tell me your full name?"

"I'm…fine," House told him sluggishly, buying himself time to come up with an answer. Even finding the words to speak was taking him too long and they both knew it.

A frown was Wilson's way of telling him that he wasn't buying it. "Just do what you're told. Tell me your name."

"House," he slurred in response, unaware that he was slurring. Wilson's frown deepened.

"What's your first name?"

House concentrated, a little troubled by the fact that he was having difficulty recalling it; it had been on the tip of his tongue a moment ago…

"Don't you remember it?" Wilson pressed, apprehensive.

"It's coming to me," House replied. "Uh…um, Gr…Greg?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Wilson demanded; House saw Wilson's Adam's apple move as he swallowed hard at his fear.

"Telling…you?"

Wilson held up fingers on one hand in front of House's face. The older man was muddled up mentally, but he knew that there shouldn't be as many of them as he saw.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Wilson asked, continuing his neuro check.

"S-seven?" House replied before moaning softly as his stomach rolled with another wave of nausea. "I don't feel so good."

Realizing that House was going to vomit, Wilson grabbed something just outside of House's sight and stuffed it under the latter's chin; House heaved up whatever there was in his stomach into the bathroom trash can.

Once House was finished vomiting, Wilson set the can aside with an expression of revulsion. He pulled a Kleenex out from somewhere—House was too muddled to know from where—and wiped the remaining vomit off of his mouth and chin before throwing the soiled tissue into the trash can. He then laid a hand gently on House's cheek. House pressed his face into Wilson's touch and closed his eyes against the spinning of the room around him. It was so easy to just relax and rest…

"House, you can't sleep!" Wilson told him sharply, startling House back awake. "You've got to stay with me, Buddy. You've scrambled your brain so you have to stay awake or else you may never wake up again."

"Supposed…to be taking care of…you…" House murmured, fighting hard to keep his eyelids open.

"You did," Wilson told him with an indulgent smile. He leaned forward and kissed House's forehead. "Now it's my turn to take care of you again. See how that works?"

A crooked, dopy smile crossed House's lips as his eyes rolled a little in their sockets. He was so tired! No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't keep his eyes open.

"Sorry, Wilson," he garbled. "So…sleepy. Jus'…can't…"

He heard Wilson telling him to stay with him, but the gentle numbing of sleep simply had too great a hold on him and dragged him down into its cozy blackness.

_**~h/w~**_

"…No sign of any intracranial bleeding; he does have a grade III concussion, though," Foreman said, his voice piercing the darkness of House's mind. Slowly the diagnostician rose through the layers of unconsciousness, and as he did he became more and more aware of his surroundings via sound, smell and touch—and with the last of those senses came a lot of pain, seemingly from every part of his body but especially his leg and head.

"That's…that's a relief," Wilson's voice said with a sigh.

"You should get some rest, Wilson," Foreman told him. "You didn't fare well last night, either. What the hell happened, anyway?"

"The same as before," was the answer followed by another sigh, this one sounding much more worried. "Only this time it went after House, too. With my luck, he won't even remember what happened and will _still_ think that I'm hallucinating."

House did remember what had happened, surprisingly, though he had no way of explaining it. His belief that the supernatural did not exist, that there was always a logical, scientific explanation for everything one experienced, was showing cracks in it. He searched his brain for an answer, but his thoughts were jumbled and discordant thanks to the bruising his brain suffered.

"Have you thought about calling those parapsychologists I told you about?" Foreman asked. "I know it sounds crazy, and I can't believe _I_ suggested it, but at this point, what have you got to lose?"

"So you don't think I need to see a psychiatrist instead?" Wilson sounded bitter, sending a stab of guilt to House's heart.

"Oh, I do," Foreman replied not unkindly, "but not necessarily because I think you're psychotic. After what you've been through, you need someone professional to talk to about all of this."

House forced his leaden eyelids open and blinked away the fuzziness he was initially met with. Wilson and Foreman stood at the foot of his hospital bed, oblivious to the fact that he was awake and listening in. Wilson wore a pair scrubs, that flesh on his upper chest and neck that was not hidden by his clothing covered with new dressings.

"I know," Wilson whispered, nodding almost imperceptibly. He looked frail and exhausted. "Yeah…I think we should call. Like you said, "I've got nothing to use. It was bad enough when it was only after me but now that it's hurt House, too…I can't just sit in the corner and cower anymore."

"Wilson?" House spoke at last, drawing looks of surprise from the other two. His voice was barely louder than a whisper; its weakness surprised him. Wilson immediately rounded the bed and sat down on the edge of it even with House's hip. His beautiful but troubled brown eyes swept over House, assessing what he saw, before finally gazing back at him directly. A hint of a smile touched the corners of Wilson's mouth, and his hand came up to caress House's cheek briefly. His hand trembled a little.

"How long have you been awake?"

House shrugged one shoulder, taking the hand on his face and holding it. "I don't know. About a minute or so? You okay?"

Now Wilson _did_ smile. "I still have to get used to you asking me that," he said. "I'm alive. You're the one we've been concerned about. How do you feel?"

"Like shit," House responded honestly. "No surprise there."

"We need to do a neuro exam," Foreman said from the foot of the bed. "You hit your head pretty hard last night. Your CT was clear but after so many knocks on the head we need to be cautious."

House moved his eyes to look at his boss; it hurt less than moving his entire head. "Don't worry about me. Take care of Wilson."

Wilson shook his head at House disapprovingly. Foreman walked around the other side of the bed.

"What's your name?" the neurologist-turned-Dean of Medicine asked.

"God," House replied, deadpan.

"Smarten up," Wilson told him firmly, "this is serious."

House saw the worry on Wilson's face again and sighed. "Yes, Mom. House, Gregory, physician and lover extraordinaire."

"More information than I needed," Foreman told him, making a face. He continued with the neuro check and when he was done Wilson was anxious to know what he thought.

"Well?"

"B-plus," Foreman said with a sigh. "His memory is a bit lazy, but that's not unusual with a severe concussion. Given a couple of days of bed-rest, he should be fine. He needs to stay here for at least a day for observation, though."

"No," House objected quickly, a half-beat before Wilson's "Yes." The younger man glared at his partner.

"House, you need to be careful. With your history any further injury could result in Second Impact Syndrome!"

"I'm not staying here while someone is out to hurt and possibly kill you," House insisted fiercely, glaring back at Wilson. "I'm not letting you out of my sight for a microsecond. You go to bed, I go to bed. You shower, I shower with you. You go to the bathroom, I stand at the very next urinal and mock your pee-shyness. I'm _not_ staying."

"You both are probably safer here than anywhere else," Foreman told them before a full-blown argument could take place. "The attacks have all taken place outside the hospital, right? When you're at home? Nothing has happened here, has it?"

Both House and Wilson looked at each other before returning their attentions back to Foreman, shaking their heads.

"Then we'll have House transferred to a semi-private room and you'll be staying there, too, until _your_ injuries—physical and psychological—are tended to as well," Foreman told them, taking charge and leaving no room for argument. "I'll make the arrangements and—" he gave both of them a stern look, but focused mostly on House, "—I'm going to call the university and arrange a meeting for you two with the paranormal researchers I told you about. While you're meeting with them, the police can investigate to see whether or not there is somebody in the _normal_ realm trying to kill you. I can't afford to lose two department heads all at once; the board will be asking for _my_ head if that happens…"

_**~h/w~**_

"That," House said with a sigh, finishing his narrative and setting his ball down at its place on his desk and looking pointedly at Carrie, "was where you and yours came in only to make a bad situation turn into absolute hell before everything was over."

Carrie smiled knowingly. "Your welcome," she said.


End file.
